The Quintessential Bond
by avidbeader
Summary: Terrans have a unique feature where the quintessences of two people can blend so thoroughly that they are connected in body and spirit. So far there has been no provable weakening of the bond due to distance once it is awakened. But now, two soulmates are about to be separated by an entire solar system for over a year. Soulmate AU.
1. Part 1

Disclaimer: If you recognize the characters, they aren't mine. Just playing in the sandbox provided by Dreamworks and the "Voltron" production team.

Reminder: I'm on Twitter under "avidbeader" if you're reading this as a guest and prefer seeing notifications there. I'm also on Tumblr, reblogging all the Voltron.

* * *

It was never a question of fault. Blame had been removed from the equation in regard to soulmates for millennia in religious writings. The scientific advances in the last few centuries had identified and measured the soul bond's existence, had upped the odds somewhat on two soulmates finding one another. They had even found a way to break the bond in extreme circumstances, but they had come no closer to predicting which two people would be forever linked.

But Shiro derived a great deal of fun in pretending to blame Matt during those months at the Garrison and the first part of the Kerberos Mission.

Matt had been the one to ask Shiro to act as Professor Hedrick's assistant in the third-level class for hand-to-hand combat. With Rodríguez on leave for his sister's wedding, Hedrick was looking for volunteers among the other junior officers. Matt had assessed the likely possibilities and panicked at the idea that Lawson might do it – the lieutenant knew his stuff but had not developed the knack of demonstrating holds or strikes without going full throttle. So Matt begged Shiro to step up instead and prevent two weeks' worth of bruises and sprains in the class.

Shiro looked at the line of cadets on the mat before him. Most of them looked to be third years, but a few stood out as second years. Matt grinned at him from his spot near the middle. Then Shiro noticed the boy almost at the end of the line.

He was at least a head shorter than anyone else in the group and had a very slim build. Shiro knew that he was likely a second year and wouldn't be in this class if he had not proven to the teachers than he was ready, but he looked younger than even a first-year. Shiro tried to watch without being noticed as the class went through warmups and the boy projected an air of quiet confidence that piqued his interest.

Shiro helped Hedrick demonstrate the first attack and defense of the session. It was a simple one, but very effective at turning the defensive move into a throw if timed well. A few of the cadets seemed to think this move was beneath them and grew restive. Hedrick glared at them, then barked, "So, you think this is easy? Get up here and show me, Monroe!"

The cadet who had been flirting with the girl seated beside him threw a grin at her and got up.

"Let's see if you have this. Shirogane, attack."

Shiro readied himself, then launched. The cadet tried to grab his arm and wrestle him down, but moved too late. Shiro brought his other hand around to grab a shoulder and drop his opponent to the mat. Monroe looked up at him, embarrassed and a little angry.

"What you fail to grasp is that it's timing, not strength. Kogane, I need you up here."

The boy Shiro had noticed jumped to his feet, shoving his heavy dark bangs out of his eyes, and approached as Monroe slunk back to his seat. Hedrick nodded. "Okay, Shirogane. Attack."

Shiro waited while Kogane set himself, then attacked again. Kogane sidestepped at just the right moment and seized his arm through his sweatshirt. But instead of simply letting Shiro's momentum carry him through the attack and past him, Kogane held on and pulled down, then up. Unable to tumble, Shiro quickly adjusted into a breakfall and Kogane let go and backed up, resetting his stance.

As Shiro expected, most of the other cadets were impressed by his loud thump against the mat while Hedrick was impressed by Kogane's performance. "Good job, cadet. _That_ is what this technique is supposed to look like. Pair off and see if you can match him."

Kogane nodded his thanks and held out a hand to help Shiro to his feet. Shiro grasped it, feeling a sudden and strong flash of heat between their palms…

…as something entered his essence and slotted into the place that had always been there for it…

 _…_ _he was seeing Keith's life flash by, like a movie on fast-forward. His mother simply vanished from his life before he started pre-K. His father died from a virulent bacterial infection when he was seven. The string of foster homes, some good and some bad. Choosing to apply to the Garrison to get out of the system sooner. Maxing out every practical test in the flight school program and gaining entry with a full scholarship…_

Shiro felt Keith's hand slipping away and tightened his grip. At some point Matt had moved to his side and was holding him up.

"Shiro? You okay?"

One of the other cadets had jumped forward to catch Keith as his legs seemed to give out. "I think we've got a new soul bond. My sister and her soulmate looked like this when they touched for the first time."

Hedrick looked at the two of them, a little uncertain. "Okay, then. Holt, Southerby, escort them to the infirmary. Let's be sure."

"I'm fine!" Keith insisted.

"Humor me, cadet. You looked pretty out of it there."

Keith swallowed his argument and nodded. "Sir."

Matt and Southerby switched sides so the larger boy could support Shiro and Matt could help Keith. Their progress was slow, as Shiro refused to let go of Keith's hand the entire way.

* * *

As a child, after the death of his father, Keith had often fantasized about finding his soulmate. In the bad times, shoved into a foster home that was at best ill-prepared and at worst hostile, he would imagine a girl swooping in to fix everything. She was always old enough to actually be able to do something about his situation and always had eyes so light brown that they shimmered like gold.

As he got older and realized that boys were just as interesting as girls, the fantasies faded into curiosity and idle speculation. The odds dictated that the identity of his soulmate was a moot point anyway. Even though something about the bond itself seemed to draw soulmates into each other's spheres and Terra's population was increasingly mobile, less than a third of the population actually found their soulmate at all, much less at an age young enough to do something about it.

So by the time Keith had gotten accepted into Galaxy Garrison, he was focused on his current situation. Get his education, train to be a pilot, and achieve what freedom he could grasp in flight. Try to touch the stars. He no longer wondered who his other half was or where they were.

And then, out of the blue, he found Takashi Shirogane.

* * *

After the infirmary staff checked them over and gave them a clean bill of health, they wandered out into the late afternoon sun. They stood there, side by side, each wondering what to do next.

 _Funny,_ Shiro thought. _All the media stuff about soulmates makes it sound like you've found your perfect match. No more awkward silences, no more wondering what your partner is feeling._

"Well, Angela Whitaker is a liar." Keith's wry voice broke in.

Shiro glanced at him, startled at the mention of a popular author with a long string of books that portrayed the soul bond turning people into perfect couples. He snorted in laughter. "Was that your feeling or were you sensing me?"

Keith looked up at him and Shiro caught his breath. He had assumed that Keith's eyes were gray, a little lighter than his own, but in the full light they were a rich violet color.

"I think all I was getting from you was a what-the-hell-do-we-do-now feeling, but since that's pretty much where my head is, it could be that we are of one literal mind."

Shiro laughed again. His uncertainty was beginning to fade as he saw the positives of the situation. His newly-discovered soulmate was healthy, very easy on the eyes, and had a sense of humor. They were both part of the Garrison, which meant they were both used to military culture. From what he had gotten in their initial connection, Keith had no family to take into account. In fact, the only downside Shiro could think of was…

"Sorry for asking, but how old are you? You look young for a second-year."

"I'm a first year."

"But you were in the third-level class?"

"They tested me like everyone else." Keith's voice turned a bit defensive.

 _So much for soulmates being so in tune that they never step on each other's toes. As that old television show would say, myth busted._

"Sorry, it's just really rare for a first-year to be that good in hand-to-hand."

Keith shrugged. "One of my early foster parents got me into martial arts classes. I kept it up as best I could even with moving around a lot. And there were plenty of…real-life lessons."

Shiro's hand went up and gave Keith's shoulder a squeeze almost before he realized he was going to do it. "I'm sorry. So you're how old?"

"Sixteen in a few months."

 _Fifteen…he's six years younger than me…_

Age gaps happened with the soul bond. While the data showed that the majority were within three years of each other's ages, there were millions of soulmates with wider gaps. A gap that was decades apart with the younger still a child was the only guaranteed reason for a separation request to be approved.

"And you?" Keith asked, an edge in his voice. He had obviously picked up on Shiro's unease.

"Twenty-one. I turn twenty-two next February."

"Could be worse." His words were careless but through the bond Shiro could feel Keith rapidly adjusting and deciding that all in all, this was not a bad situation. Shiro stamped down his own worries and smiled.

"Coffee?"

"Sure, but make mine tea. Can't stand coffee."

"That's it, I'm calling this off," Shiro deadpanned and Keith laughed.

* * *

Nothing could adequately describe the constant presence of the other in their thoughts and sensations. Shiro and Keith learned control, to focus on one's own surroundings when needed and to relax and let awareness of the other spread through them when possible. They worked to master their reactions if the other had a sudden shift in circumstance after Keith suffering a dislocated shoulder in combat practice caused Shiro to crash in a simulation run.

They spent free time together, eating in the cafeteria and working in the library. The Garrison did not automatically allow soulmates to share quarters, but did shuffle a few cadets so that Keith no longer had a roommate. As a junior officer Shiro had his own apartment, but they made a point not to spend too much time there alone. They did their best to behave like any two close friends in the Garrison would, keeping most displays of affection out of sight, and gradually the gossip machine found new things to talk about. There would be time enough later to fully explore their bond, after Keith finished his training, after Shiro made senior officer, after their six-year age gap was less of an issue to the people around them.

They assumed there would always be time.

* * *

Thank you for reading!


	2. Part 2

Disclaimer: If you recognize the characters, they aren't mine. Just playing in the sandbox provided by Dreamworks and the "Voltron" production team.

Reminder: I'm on Twitter under "avidbeader" if you're reading this as a guest and prefer seeing notifications there. I'm also on Tumblr, reblogging all the Voltron.

* * *

Keith was in the middle of writing his study guide for the upcoming Interstellar Navigations exam when it hit him. The sudden clash of _excitement-nerves-joy-fear-hesitation-disbelief_ made him drop his tablet.

Shiro. It had to be the Kerberos mission. Shiro must have gotten the pilot's position.

He took a deep breath. He could handle this. They had talked about this.

 _"_ _And you're sure you don't have a problem with it? Being alone for fourteen months or more if I'm chosen?"_

 _"_ _The only problem I'll have is if some nutjob researcher finds out we're soulmates and tries to keep me in a lab and monitor our bond while you're gone."_

 _That made Shiro pause. Previous research showed that soulmates still felt the bond between Terra and Mars, but the chance to test it as far as the edge of the solar system would be very tempting to some scientist somewhere._

 _"_ _I'll bring it up with Commander Holt. I don't think there's a chance in hell of you coming with us, but he might have some ideas on how to protect you."_

 _"_ _I was mostly joking, Shiro. I'm not sure anyone around here remembers that we're soulmates other than Matt."_

 _"_ _True. And I'm going to wake up Matt every morning on this mission and thank him for bringing us together."_

 _"_ _Sap."_

 _"_ _Of course." Shiro pulled Keith into his arms. "Seriously, this is going to be hard."_

 _"_ _I know. But this is the chance of a lifetime for you and I don't want to stop you. And I'll put my time to good use. I'm already almost halfway through the second-year requirements. What do you think about coming back from Kerberos to find that your soulmate is a junior officer at seventeen?"_

 _"_ _I think that's one of the best ideas ever. But don't kill yourself trying to get it."_

They had a plan.

* * *

Keith accompanied Shiro's parents to the reception before Shiro and the Holts would move to quarantine prior to leaving. Shiro's mother doted on Keith, promising to stay in touch and send care packages. His father was a little standoffish and Keith began to worry that he had done something wrong.

Shiro sensed his anxiety and pulled him aside. "What's the matter?"

"Your dad…I don't think he likes me."

"He does, I promise."

"No, Shiro, he really seems uncomfortable with me. Maybe he's just been saying he was fine with you having another guy for a soulmate and now he can't deal with it face to face."

Shiro put a hand to either side of Keith's face, tilting it up. "It isn't that, I promise you. He's worried because of his own experience. He found his soulmate when he was twelve and she was ten."

Keith frowned in confusion. "But, your mom said—"

"She was killed in a car accident when she was fourteen. Dad needed a lot of time and support to get through it. He met Mom at college and they hit it off. Her family never bought much into the entire soulmates concept in the first place—they were very 'whatever will be will be'. She decided falling in love was just as good. Anyway, after I told him about us, Dad gave me a long lecture about what it felt like to lose your soulmate, getting used to that hole in your mind and heart that never really goes away. I bet he wanted to give you the same warning, but Mom put her foot down."

Keith chuckled a little at that, having seen Shiro's mother in action. "Thanks for telling me. I was getting worried."

Shiro planted a quick kiss on his forehead. "You're welcome. Come on, let's get back to the party."

* * *

Keith was grateful that he could isolate himself in his room as the launch happened. He sat on his bed, his tablet streaming the live audio broadcast, and focused on Shiro's presence, savoring every shift in emotion as they lifted off.

Once the ship was safely out of the atmosphere and Shiro's triumph poured into him, Keith concentrated on sending back his pride and love.

 _I'll see you in fourteen months._

* * *

Shiro did indeed thank Matt daily for being the reason he and Keith came together. He tried to find a different phrase each day, resorting to multiple languages or bursting into song when he was feeling a lack of inspiration. Commander Holt found it hilarious, but would often share stories of his own soul-bonded grandparents, giving Shiro a good picture of the ups and downs of being permanently linked, mentally and emotionally, with another person for the rest of your life.

During the voyage out, Keith was a steady presence in Shiro's mind. His soulmate was indeed driving himself hard, working to achieve his early graduation goals. There were occasions that Shiro knew Keith had been injured, likely in physical training, and twice something happened to trigger Keith's temper in spectacular fashion. But generally they shifted back and forth in an easy, contented existence, patiently waiting to be reunited.

* * *

Commander Holt had devised an excellent compromise for Keith's worries about being turned into someone's lab rat. He found a scientist that was eager for the chance to expand the study of distance effects on the bond. Holt then negotiated fiercely and arranged a contract dictating that in return for exclusive access to Keith during the mission she would limit her examinations to three times a week and give Keith a generous stipend out of the resulting grant money.

Keith stashed away half of the first installment in a bank account but did allow himself one large indulgence and bought himself a late-model used hoverbike. He spent many Sundays taking it out into the desert around the Garrison, learning its every quirk and coming the closest he could get to actual unsupervised flight until he finished his training.

By sheer coincidence he was in Dr. Hooper's lab, electrodes already on his forehead, temples, and chest, when everything spiked. Hooper ran around, shutting off all the alarms, and looked at Keith frantically. "What's going on?"

Keith's smile threatened to split his face. "They made it! They're on Kerberos!"

The doctor squealed and clapped her hands. "That's wonderful! When do you think they'll announce it?"

"Probably in a few days. I expect Commander Holt will confirm landing, then confirm when they've started collecting the ice samples they're after. The Garrison will probably announce both at once, make a bigger media splash that way."

His grin never left his face as Hooper recorded the readings in excitement.

* * *

Two nights later, Keith woke up screaming from a nightmare of a ship looming over him and his crew, of being hauled in by some irresistible force. Large figures with glowing eyes and purple skin towered over him and dragged him through a long hallway, throwing him into a small cell.

 _Shiro! Something's happened to Shiro!_

He rose and threw on clothes, shoving his bare feet into sneakers and grabbing his jacket, and took off for the monitoring center. His security clearance as a cadet would get him into the front lobby. Then he needed to find someone who was stationed with the Kerberos mission and warn them.

Entering the building, he saw Commander Iverson, deep in conversation with Lieutenant General Franke. They both looked up, startled, as Keith burst through the door.

The eyebrow above Iverson's bad eye quirked up, throwing his face off balance. "Kogane? What the hell are you doing here?"

Franke focused sharply on Keith and muttered, "The soulmate?" He put the tablet in his hand to sleep and stepped forward. "What can you tell us, Kogane? All we know is we lost radio contact a few hours ago."

"I think…I think they've been taken by a hostile force! Shiro's trapped, scared…I think the Holts are alive, but I can't be sure!"

Iverson reached out and took Keith by the shoulders. "Deep breaths, Keith. Hold your focus. It's a good thing you can confirm that he's still alive. Now, I need you to keep this information completely to yourself."

"Y-yes. Yes, sir?" Keith found the request odd. He struggled to concentrate through Shiro's and his own fear coursing through him.

"We need to sort out what to tell the press. It is vital that you do not tell anyone else what you know. Can you do that?"

Keith swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump in his throat. "Yes, sir."

"I'll arrange with your instructors to give you the next few days off. We'll say it's flu. Stick to your room as much as possible."

"Could I…stay at Shiro's apartment?" The possibility of being among Shiro's belongings, in his bed, immediately made Keith feel calmer.

The two men looked at one another for a moment, then Iverson nodded. "Get your things. I'll let the building supervisor know to expect you."

* * *

The guards never acknowledged his words. Every time someone would bring the tray of slop that served as food, every time one of those weird hooded figures stopped to look in, Shiro would plead for himself and his crew. But the helms and hoods hid their eyes and he had no sense at all whether they even heard him, much less understood him.

That changed after one of the hooded things reached through the bars in the door with an odd device. The alien activated it and a bright purple light swept over him from head to toe. Pain spiked in his head and receded.

The thing withdrew and Shiro heard it speak words he could understand, in an odd hissing voice. "That should take care of it. Their brains are primitive, but similar enough for the translators." And just like that, Shiro could understand everything being said around him. It brought no comfort.

Keith's fear for him was constant in the back of his mind. Shiro tried to keep his own emotions steady for Keith's sake, but the best he could manage was perpetual dread over the situation and worry over the Holts.

And then, three or four days later, they came and pulled him out of his cell.

The guards ruthlessly stripped him of his spacesuit and threw a set of dark clothing at him. The bodysuit material seemed made to stretch out and fit its wearer perfectly, with the gray tunic added for warmth. The boots were made of an odd fabric that was flexible but strong, with rubber-like soles for traction.

Once he was dressed, the guards grabbed him and practically dragged him down a long corridor. Others dressed similarly were being brought as well. Shiro's heart leaped when he recognized a shock of brown hair sticking up in all directions.

"Matt!"

The head turned to reveal Matt's face with an ugly bruise spreading from one temple. He peered around a tall gray alien and called back, "Shiro?"

"Yes! I'm here!" One of Shiro's guards drove a fist into his ribs.

One by one, all the prisoners were thrown into a holding area in a shuttle. The door closed, shrouding them all in a faint purple light. Shiro immediately moved to Matt's side as they felt the shuttle leave the ship.

"Do you know where your father is?"

Matt shook his head. "No. They kept us together for a day or so, then pulled us out and did some kind of physical exam."

Shiro nodded, remembering the point where he had been dragged from his cell to a room and one of those purple aliens, with a white face and white stripes on its head, drew blood and poked and prodded at him for a short time.

"The day after that they came and took Dad away. One of them said Dad was too old and only fit for a camp."

Matt's comment made Shiro's heart rate spike. "Too old? Too old for what?"

Another of the aliens, with majestic red horns curving from his head, spoke up. "Too old for the arena."

* * *

Thank you for reading!


	3. Part 3

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize the characters, they aren't mine. Just playing in the sandbox provided by Dreamworks and the "Voltron" production team.

 **Reminder:** I'm on Twitter under "avidbeader" if you're reading this as a guest and prefer seeing notifications there. My Tumblr, also "avidbeader", is currently full of Voltron stuff.

 **To the Guest Reviewer:** I am allowing your review, but have to wonder - did you miss the part in the summary where I clearly pointed toward Shiro and Keith being the pairing as the soulmates separated by a solar system? And even if that went by you, did you miss where I clearly indicated Keith and Shiro as a pairing in the character list? In other words, this fanfic is intended to result in a Sheith pairing. I like Kallura a lot, am not placing bets on it being canon just because it was before since the VLD team has shown themselves as very willing to reimagine canon. If you don't like Sheith, then this isn't the story for you. Stay in your lane and I'll stay in mine.

* * *

When the press conference happened, Keith watched from Shiro's couch. He leaned forward intently, waiting for the spokesperson to wade through all the things that the Garrison residents would know but that the general population needed for context. Then the spokesperson got to the heart of the matter.

"It is with the deepest sadness and regret that we must share that the Kerberos mission was a failure. The ship appears to have crashed on the moon. We presume at this point that it was due to pilot error, some mistake by Captain Shirogane—"

"WHAT?" Keith shouted in disbelief.

"—and all crew members are missing, presumed dead."

"YOU LIARS!" He threw the remote hard enough to leave a dent in the wall next to the viewscreen before charging out of Shiro's apartment.

* * *

Iverson intercepted him before he got halfway to the Garrison's conference center. He grabbed Keith by the shoulders and swung him around.

"I know, I know. The higher-ups are trying to brush it all under a rug because if we let it out that hostile aliens exist we'll have a worldwide panic. And even if we were able to get a new team out just like that we still wouldn't arrive in time to help. They're long gone."

His words shredded Keith from his throat to the pit of his stomach. Until this point he had refused to consider the worst, that Shiro was gone forever. That was a thought he couldn't face yet. He choked out, "But _pilot error?_ Why not mechanical failure if you have to lie about it? Why blame Shiro?"

"Because too many egos are involved in the design and construction of the ships. It would set us back years if we had to redesign anything due to mechanical failure."

"You're scapegoating him!"

"Son—"

"You're going to let his family, his friends, all of history believe he's a failure when he's not! Did you tell his parents the truth? Because I can fix that—"

"Cadet!"

Keith ground his teeth together, holding back the torrent of words.

"Let me handle his parents. You have to stay quiet. If you want any kind of future here, if you want the chance to get to space yourself, you have to stay quiet. Do you understand? Don't you think he would have wanted you to achieve your dreams?"

"He _does_ want it. Don't forget, he's still alive out there. I know that for a fact."

With that, Keith batted Iverson's hands away from him and stalked back the way he came.

He didn't see Iverson's expression harden as he watched the youth leave.

Neither of them saw the small figure hiding in a recess in the wall nearby.

* * *

Katie Holt wasn't quite sure how she managed to sneak back to the guest quarters where she and her mother were staying. Every bit of her considerable mind was wrapped around what she had heard. Shiro had not crashed. They had seemingly run into aliens and been captured. This cadet swore that Shiro was alive, which meant that her family was out there, still alive, and the Garrison wasn't planning to even try a rescue. They were going to cover it all up instead and abandon the crew.

She wondered at first how the cadet could be so sure, then it hit her. Shiro had a soulmate. Matt had brought it up one night when they had Shiro over for dinner, making a funny story about them discovering each other in a hand-to-hand combat class. Her father had helped them, something about a scientist wanting to study the bond as two soulmates were about to be divided by the greatest distance ever recorded.

So this cadet knew for certain that Shiro was alive. He might be able to tell from Shiro's thoughts and emotions whether her father and Matt were all right. Now she had one available proof.

But two proofs would be better. She would stake out Iverson's office and try to access any video feeds from the ship that would show a safe landing. Armed with both, she could get her mother and maybe Shiro's parents to believe and act on the information.

* * *

Keith managed to hold himself together for the next several days. Other than his classes and meals, he hid out in Shiro's apartment. He spent hours curled up on Shiro's bed, focusing love and support through their bond. His soulmate was still afraid, sometimes angry, injured once, and often sick to his very core over having to kill. Keith guessed that Shiro had been conscripted into some alien army, fighting beings that he had no quarrel with for the sake of the aliens who had kidnapped him. He often worried about the Holts, so Keith had further proof that the entire crew had survived the initial arrival on Kerberos.

He had put Dr. Hooper off, claiming illness and then questioning her need for him as she had her own records of the soul bond extending all the way to Kerberos without losing any strength. But two weeks after the press conference, she called him.

"I need you to meet me immediately, somewhere off campus. It's hugely important."

"I don't know what more I can tell you, but all right. The coffeeshop next to Stellaluna's Pizza?"

"Be there as soon as possible."

Keith left Shiro's apartment and took his hoverbike into town. He entered the shop and looked around, but it took a hand waving at him to recognize her. Dr. Hooper had cut her long dark hair short and lightened it.

He sat down across from her and frowned as she scanned the shop once more. "What's going on?"

"What's going on is that someone killed our project. They didn't just halt it because of those reports of Shiro's death." She rolled her eyes. She knew as well as Keith did that the crew had arrived safely on Kerberos. "They wiped my server, all the records of my research. If I hadn't been making backups of the data it would have all been gone. I haven't been able to figure out who or why, but something is very, very wrong. Here, take this." She slid a thick envelope across the table to him. "Don't open it here. I drew out the rest of the grant money before they closed that off, too. This is your share. I put it on several travel currency cards in different amounts. Do not deposit any of it."

"But—"

"If I'm wrong, then fine. I'll look like an idiot. But it hit me, you and I are the only people that can prove that the Kerberos crew is alive. And someone important decided that they need to be dead. I have family up in Alberta who can help me hide. Do you want to come with me?"

"I…no. If what you're saying is true we need to split up. I think I have somewhere to go if I need it. But I should talk to Iverson, he's the only one left who will listen to me."

Hooper's face creased in worry lines. "I don't know if that's a good idea. Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

She stood, then leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "It's been wonderful to work with you. I hope… I don't know what I hope. But good luck." She shouldered her purse, picked up her coffee, and left.

* * *

Dr. Hooper's worry was contagious. When Keith returned to the apartment block at the Garrison, he parked inside the basement garage instead of on the street. He opened the envelope enough to see around twenty-five anonymous plastic cards. He locked it in the hold behind the hoverbike seat.

Once in Shiro's apartment, he found an empty duffle bag and swiftly tossed in clothes from the drawers he had used, grabbing armfuls carelessly. He added the few personal treasures that he had brought with him from his own room: the dagger his father had said was from his mother's family, the single picture he had of his dad, and the black belt he had earned just a month before leaving for the Garrison. He took the packed bag down to the garage and added it to the hold.

If he was wrong, he wouldn't look too much like a paranoid idiot.

* * *

It was sooner than she would like, but it had to be tonight. Colleen Holt had been awarded a massive amount of compensation money and was returning to her parents' home in Connecticut with Katie to try and rebuild her life. Their flight was scheduled for tomorrow.

Katie dressed simply, in jeans and a shirt, leaving her backpack of tech behind. She had been allowed to wander freely over most of the complex so far. Her pocket tablet had what she would need to decode any locked door quickly. After that it was a matter of getting into Iverson's computer, finding the files, and pulling them off onto a flash drive.

Piece of cake.

* * *

This was new.

Shiro tried to keep his emotions on an even keel for Keith's sake, but any change in the routine usually meant more pain and blood. Today he and Ch'varr, the red-horned alien, had been pulled out of their cells and loaded into a small transport, going away from the arena. They would not be fighting in teams against large creatures for the entertainment of these aliens—these Galra.

Just yesterday one of the other aliens, Merool, had died in the fight. The creature's claws had not cut very deep, but from the amount of blood that resulted it was clear that a major artery had been sliced open. Matt and Xi had tried to stem the blood while the others worked to bring the beast down. But by the time they succeeded and ran over to help Merool, he was dead.

Last night was the closest Shiro had come to considering suicide. It would be so easy: provoke a guard, move the wrong way in the next fight, even make a statement of it in the arena by impaling himself on one of the swords. But he knew he couldn't.

He couldn't do that to Matt and leave him alone here, with no one else.

He couldn't do that to Commander Holt, who was hopefully still out there somewhere.

And he couldn't do that to Keith. His father had made it abundantly clear just how devastating it was to lose that presence, that sense of being whole, especially if one's soulmate were beloved. Before modern psychology and mental care, soulmates had often followed each other into death by suicide or self-neglect.

He _would_ _not_ do that to Keith.

Besides, the only way to get back to Terra somehow was to keep living, keep hoping, and keep looking for a way out.

* * *

Thank you as always for reading, for follows/favorites, and for reviews!


	4. Part 4

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize the characters, they aren't mine. Just playing in the sandbox provided by Dreamworks and the "Voltron" production team.

 **Reminder:** I'm on Twitter under "avidbeader" if you're reading this as a guest and prefer seeing notifications there. My Tumblr, also "avidbeader", is currently full of Voltron stuff.

* * *

Keith messaged Iverson through the Garrison's system and the commander replied that he would be in his office after 2230 hours. That was…late. Dr. Hooper's words came back to him: _someone important decided that the Kerberos crew needed to be dead_.

He went into town after classes and withdrew most of the money from his bank account, getting some hard currency and putting the rest of it on yet another anonymous debit card. He used the cash to lay in a supply of water and packaged food that would last several days. He added those purchases to the hold in the hoverbike before heading back to the Garrison. He returned to the apartment and tried to get some studying in before dinner. It was difficult to focus—Shiro was jumpy and nervous about something.

* * *

They separated Shiro and Ch'varr at the destination, a much bigger arena that the one they had been in. Shiro was checked over by someone he presumed was a medic—the same white-faced one who had done the initial exam on him—and taken to a bathing room. For once he did not question the aliens' purpose and took the opportunity to scrub himself clean and dress in the fresh uniform.

When he was done, they took him to a staging room. There were multiple low-tech weapons mounted on the walls: flails, swords and knives of various sizes, and even a crossbow. The Galra guard waved a hand, indicating that he should choose. Shiro shrugged; he had no idea what he was dealing with. He took the crossbow and a bandolier with extra bolts, a sword and a knife. He had little experience with the crossbow, but at least he knew how to aim and shoot it. He had never tried to use a flail before.

The guard grabbed his arm and pulled him down a hallway where he could hear the noise of a crowd, much larger than any other so far. The guard positioned him in front of a door. "Make sure you smile. You fight in front of the Emperor today."

Shiro rolled his eyes at that but now things made sense. He and Ch'varr had the most combat experience of their group and were apparently being promoted in a twisted way. It didn't change Shiro's objective: survive and avoid killing if possible.

The noise outside shifted to some kind of music, heavy on drums, and the door in front of him opened. Shiro stepped out into an arena at least six times as big as the one where he had been fighting. He was now in the equivalent of Camp Nou II or Rungrado.

Across from him, he saw Ch'varr emerge from another door, carrying a flail in each hand. At each side, another door opened and two more large aliens stepped through. One looked to be a particularly powerful example of the Galra, the dominant race here. The other had the appearance of a large, hairless Cocker Spaniel, with a muzzle-like nose and long, floppy ears. Both of them were empty-handed, apparently relying on their larger size and natural claws in a fight.

"Four shall enter, two shall leave. No quarter given," boomed an announcer's voice and the crowd cheered in anticipation.

 _That will be you and me, Ch'varr._

* * *

Keith drove the hoverbike to his meeting with Iverson. It was already dark and while the Garrison was generally a safe place he didn't want to walk it alone at night.

He held his ID card to the scanner and pushed the door open after the lock released. The interior lights were set to night levels and he moved carefully, following the hallway through the dimness. He turned a corner and saw Iverson's door open down the corridor, bright light splashing the floor and wall. Keith picked up his pace. Shiro's presence loomed in his chest—his soulmate was being forced to fight yet again.

As he went past a turn for another hall he heard movement behind him. Keith spun around and saw three men rushing him. Their faces were hidden by balaclavas. Already keyed up from Shiro's nervousness, he dodged and pushed at just the right moment, sending the first one past him and into the wall. But the other two came at him at the same time. He tried to duck between them and tumble out of their way, but one of them snagged his arm and twisted it behind him. They threw some kind of cloth over his head as he shouted for help, muffling his voice. They hauled him several yards down the hall and turned. Keith fought with everything he had, thrashing and kicking, but he was one against three much bigger opponents. It was hard to breathe and he grew dizzy. They eventually lifted him, stripped his jacket off him, and pinned him down until someone fastened straps across his body, holding him down.

Someone pulled the cloth from his head and he saw yet another masked person…and Iverson.

"Commander? What the hell?"

"I'm sorry, Keith, but it's for your own good."

"What's for…" Keith trailed off as he saw the other person prepare a syringe. Keith looked around wildly and saw the curved white frame and rubber nodes of an electroconvulsive therapy machine.

A combination of certain drugs and a series of shocks to the brain was the common method to break a soul bond.

"No…NO!" Keith screamed and struggled against his bonds. The second person pushed the sleeve of his T-shirt higher and wrapped a tourniquet around his bicep. "NO! Don't do this!"

"It's for the best! He's lost forever, why should you suffer knowing what's happening to him?"

"NO! I have to know that he's alive! And he needs me—you can't take away his only link back!"

Iverson looked unhappy, but reached and pulled a washcloth from a stack near a sink. He unfolded it and jammed it into Keith's mouth, cutting off his protests.

Keith kept fighting as the other man approached him with the syringe.

* * *

There had been no surprises so far in the fight. He and Ch'varr communicated with glances and did not tip their hands immediately that they would work together. The Galra gladiator tried to start with Shiro, but the fourth alien blindsided him with claws and teeth, provoking his temper and drawing him away. Shiro and Ch'varr sparred briefly for show, then Shiro hooked one of Ch'varr's ankles and tripped him. He moved back toward the other two, wondering if he could get an opening for a swift slash to the throat to put one of the other opponents out of their misery quickly. But the Galra fighter head-butted the other, dropping him to the ground, and whirled on Shiro. He fired the crossbow, hitting the Galra in the shoulder as the purple alien closed the distance.

"Duck!"

Shiro heard the shout from behind him and obeyed. One of Ch'varr's flails sailed over his head, like a bola, and the chain wrapped around the Galra's throat. Momentum sent the handle and the spiked ball whipping around to hit him in the face. This was Shiro's best chance and he dropped his sword in favor of the knife for better control in aiming for the throat around the chain.

Suddenly Shiro felt panic rip through him. It thrummed in his veins. This was the clearest communication he had felt from Keith since being abducted: someone was going to sever their bond!

 _KEITH!_

He froze, trying to think of some way, any way, to stop what was happening galaxies away. The Galra pulled the flail from his neck and swung, smacking Shiro across the face with the handle end and jarring him back to awareness. He fell to one knee, still struggling to function as Keith's mental voice screamed for help.

"Shiro! Shiro! What are you doing?" Ch'varr leaped over him, waving the sword Shiro had abandoned.

Shiro channeled his own terror and Keith's into action, regaining his feet as Ch'varr drove the Galra back. He grabbed the flail that Ch'varr had dropped and started swinging, building up momentum until the flail was spinning as fast as he could make it.

"Ch'varr, clear!"

Ch'varr dove to one side and Shiro charged forward, slamming the spiked ball into the Galra's head. The Galra dropped like a stone, unconscious and bleeding.

Shiro dropped the weapon and leaned forward, hands on his knees, panting. He searched through his core, looking desperately for Keith. Had the assailants succeeded? Was Keith lost to him?

* * *

There was activity in the building. Katie let a long string of curses flow through her head as she moved carefully in the dim hallways to avoid any possibility of running into someone. This building had been completely empty every night before now. What had changed? Why had she not gone for Iverson's office last night instead of waiting?

Shouts for help broke the silence and she could hear sounds of a struggle. She darted to the next hallway and caught a glimpse around a corner of three full-grown men dragging a smaller figure with them into a room. Her instinct was on the side of the one being held, and she made a snap decision. Cause a distraction to let him get loose, and he would in turn be the distraction for her to get to Iverson's office.

Katie backtracked, looking for the nearest exit with a security alarm as the victim began screaming in protest. She turned down a new hall and found her goal. She realized that the screams had been cut off and broke into a run for the door, pushing it open to trip the alarm. She doubled back into an empty lounge and hid between a pair of vending machines.

* * *

Keith continued to struggle violently, and the medtech drew back. "We have to hold him still or sedate him. I have to get this in the vein."

Iverson moved forward to try and hold Keith's arm in place, but halted as an alarm began blaring through the building. "What the hell? Did those idiots leave through a security door?"

The medtech dropped the syringe on its tray. "I don't know. You check north and I'll check south. Check every door."

As both men left, Keith drew in ragged breaths through his nose. He had straps pinning him down at the chest, hips, and ankles. He bent his knees and worked one foot free, then the other. Planting his feet, he pulled down with his legs and wormed his way out from under the other straps far enough that his hands were free. He tried to reach one of the clasps that locked the straps into place but couldn't. He resumed squirming his way down, pushing himself out from under the remaining straps and yanking the gag out of his mouth. He got to his feet, snatched up his jacket, and checked the currently empty hallway. He raced for the nearest exit.

With the alarms still going, one more door being opened didn't make a difference. He escaped the building and ran around, his heart leaping when he saw his hoverbike was still where he had left it. He jumped on and activated it, tearing away just as Iverson and two other men emerged. He headed for the nearest perimeter, revving the engine and popping the antigrav to vault the bike into the air and over the fence.

* * *

Katie's fingers flew over the keyboard, digging for more. She already had a flash drive in her sock, loaded with video files. She had proof that Shiro successfully landed the ship on Kerberos and that her father and brother were alive and well at the time. They had taken more video of the equipment check and of the first round of samples gathered. There was a bit more to go through that might hold the key to their disappearance. If it was true they'd been taken by aliens, the ship's camera might have some images of the attackers—

The overhead light clicked on.

She straightened and saw Iverson in the doorway.

* * *

Keith drove at max speed, heading south. The moment he was clear, he began focusing on the soul bond, trying to let Shiro know that they were still connected.

 _I'm here. I'm still here. They didn't get me._

* * *

Shiro and Ch'varr stood together, waiting as the noise of the spectators began to shift into jeering. The other two opponents were down, but not dead. The crowd wanted blood and death. Shiro and Ch'varr refused to kill. Ch'varr stared straight ahead resolutely while Shiro's focus was inward, zeroing in on his soulmate. Shiro searched the bond, trying to find out what had happened.

 _I'm here, I'm alive. Where are you?_

Then he felt Keith's response: _I'm still here. They didn't get me._ Keith wasn't as panicked as before, but still badly frightened.

Shiro closed his eyes, sending every bit of gratitude he could muster back at Keith. Their connection sang for a moment, strong as ever.

* * *

Up in the stands, high above the crowds, she stood on the balcony at the left side of her lord. Most of the time these gladiator matches were tedious, but it was necessary to find potential candidates for her experiments. A few times in a lunar cycle there would be a possibility, one that she would mark for watching further. Once they had something of a track record here, she would pull them out individually and examine them further.

The current match was almost over. The victors were refusing to finish off the losers, which happened sometimes. The emperor would let the crowds go for several minutes to see if the fighters could be convinced to make the death stroke or not. He paid more attention to the ones who held their convictions and refused.

He rose and signaled to the guards to collect the fighters.

She gasped as her senses picked up an intense surge of the purest energy. This was unlike any quintessence she had felt before, a wave that emanated from below and spun off into the distance. Where was it coming from? How did it hold such power and brightness? She stepped forward, peering down and focusing her magic to find the source.

Her eyes widened as she traced the quintessence to one of the two victorious fighters, the one without horns. He was the source, but where was the energy going, in such a focused beam? And _returning?_ It was a two-way connection? What was on the other end?

"Haggar!"

Her head jerked up. Zarkon had finished his pronouncement and was heading back to speak with the master of ceremonies. She followed and listened as the emperor confirmed the identities of the two fighters, making note of the hornless one: Prisoner 117-9875 from Sector X-9-Y.

* * *

Thank you for reading!


	5. Part 5

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize the characters, they aren't mine. Just playing in the sandbox provided by Dreamworks and the "Voltron" production team.

 **Reminder:** I'm on Twitter under "avidbeader" if you're reading this as a guest and prefer seeing notifications there. My Tumblr, also "avidbeader", is currently full of Voltron stuff.

* * *

Keith drove south, keeping away from roads as much as possible. He had a destination in mind, if he could find it again after so many years.

About four hours later, he spotted what looked like a light in the distance. As he got closer, he realized that the light was the moon reflecting off of something. He approached more slowly, not wanting to run into anyone.

But as he topped a rise to find a large, flat valley, he saw a small house come into view. The remains of a fence circled it and a lone tree rose behind it. There were no vehicles around, no sign of any road or path leading away. He drove closer and noticed that one of the dark windows was missing a pane of glass. That was the clearest sign that this place was abandoned—given the amount of sand and grit blown about in the desert, that would have been fixed immediately.

Keith moved closer and saw what the moonlight had picked up. A metal addition, almost like a bunker, nestled up against the side of the house. The door was shut tight, whatever was inside still protected. He pulled the hoverbike up next to the bunker and dismounted.

The door had a simple keypad lock with four numbers more worn than the rest. He began going through the twenty-four possible permutations and got the combination right on the fifth try. He opened the door, fishing out a palm-sized flashlight from his belt and shining it around.

The enclosed room had a bed, a table, and a corner piled high with pallets of water bottles and stacks of canned goods. Keith pulled out his pocket tablet and checked his location through the GPS. He was about fifty miles west of his intended destination, an abandoned town that he and his father had come across while exploring the region on camping trips. The nearest inhabited town on the map was another sixty miles south and east.

This could work.

He brought in his own food supply and his bag. He investigated for any wildlife, but the metal walls had done their job and there were no potentially poisonous visitors. Checking inside the house proper, he found a main room with a kitchen setup in one corner and a door that led to a small bathroom. The main room was indeed covered in a thick layer of dust and sand, but the bathroom was mostly clean behind its closed door and functional once Keith opened the water supply from a well.

He dug through the duffle bag for fresh clothes and paused when he found some of Shiro's clothes there as well due to his hasty packing. He folded these carefully and stowed them back in the bag, then washed up, getting the accumulated road grime off. He returned to the bunker and stretched out on the bed.

As he waited for sleep, he followed the soul bond to Shiro, sending one more reinforcing message of love and support. Shiro responded, assuring him that he was safe for the moment, and then there was a faint wave of contentment that felt different…

Was that a _purr?_ Since when did Shiro _purr_ at him?

* * *

Katie was sitting on her hands, hiding the fact that she had fingers crossed on both of them. She had been in a holding area of the campus security office for twenty minutes now, waiting as they summoned her mother. If they would only send her mom in first, she could whisper to her that she had proof that Dad and Matt and Shiro were alive. Then hopefully the force of nature that was Colleen Holt when she was furious would erupt.

She heard the outer door open and her mother's voice rose over the rumble of Iverson. After a few minutes of heated arguing, footsteps sounded and the door in front of her opened.

"Kathryn—"

Katie launched herself before the full name could be drawn out and buried her face next to her mother's neck as she embraced her. She whispered urgently, "They're alive! I found proof! We have to get out of here!"

She felt her mother stiffen for a heartbeat then straighten and turn around. Iverson tried to loom over them, but Colleen Holt drew in breath and jabbed her finger into his chest.

"I hold you and the Garrison responsible for the deaths of my husband and son. You pushed for this mission. You chose Captain Shirogane as your best pilot. You are refusing to even consider assembling a team to send probes and investigate. You won't show us your evidence that it was Captain Shirogane's mistake that killed them. Is it any wonder that Katie looked for answers when you refuse to give them to us?"

"Be that as it may, your daughter is now permanently banned from this installation for her security breach!"

Her mom grabbed her arm. "That will not be a problem as we are never coming near you again!" She dragged Katie out, her head held high.

One of Iverson's aides ushered them to a hovercar and drove them back across the base to their quarters. "We have reservations for you at the main hotel in town, ma'am. I'll wait here while you finish packing."

Colleen nodded. "We won't take more than a few minutes. We were pretty much packed for our flight anyway."

Katie kept silent until they were in the hotel room, at which point her mother rounded on her. "What on God's green earth were you thinking, Katie? Breaking into a government building? Hacking a computer with classified information?"

She reached down and dug the flash drive out from where it had wedged between her foot and her sneaker. She would have a hell of a blister for a few days…

"The night of the press conference, I was out in one of the courtyards and saw Iverson stop a cadet from barging in. The cadet swore that Shiro was alive, was certain of it. So I decided to investigate. I pulled video files off Iverson's computer that show Shiro landed the ship safely. They were starting work on collecting Dad's ice samples and just…disappeared."

"How did a cadet know what happened?"

"Remember how Matt said Shiro had a soulmate?"

Colleen sank to sit on the bed, her mind floundering to make sense of it all. "Sam made arrangements with a doctor…"

"Do you remember the soulmate's name?"

"No. I have to call the Shiroganes…I have to let them know. They might have his name. But how can we fight this?"

Katie drew a deep breath. "I have an idea about that."

* * *

Twenty-six days. It had been twenty-six days, going by the daily food drops, since Shiro had been returned to the cell in the original arena. There had been no fights, no glimpse of Matt or Ch'varr or the others. Shiro began exercising as best he could just to alleviate the boredom: stretches, pushups, sit-ups, what he remembered of a brief excursion into tai-chi, anything that kept him moving. After the second day of this, they started bringing in a fresh uniform every day. With fresh clothes and the water from the tiny faucet in the corner, he could keep himself relatively clean. At the moment the situation was almost tolerable; if he only knew that Matt and Sam were all right.

When Keith was awake, Shiro followed the bond, trying to sort out what the hell had happened. All he could get was that there had been an attempt to break their bond and Keith had run from the Garrison because of it. He was currently somewhere isolated, but somewhere that felt reasonably safe for now.

* * *

Keith excavated the house in stages. He started by putting a temporary patch over the broken window and working to get the layers of sand and dirt out. As he cleaned, he made a full inventory of what was in the house and the bunker, weeding out the unusable, repairing and rearranging what was salvageable to his preferences. He carefully evicted the small zoo of local wildlife that had taken up residence in the house. He figured out how to reset the code for locking the bunker. He made a list of necessities, took a couple of currency cards and the last of his cash, and set off early one morning.

He skipped the nearest small town, going another seventy miles to the next one. He started at the public library, filling out a visitors' card with fake information so he could access their computers and set up a new account on a popular messaging program.

He had drafted the message so many times in his head on the drive but still needed almost the full hour to get it sent.

 _Dear Mr. and Mrs. Shirogane,_

 _This is Keith. I am so sorry for not getting in touch before now, but as you will read, things went downhill very quickly after Takashi and the team made it to Kerberos._

 _I don't know what Iverson told you, but the official story in the media is wrong. Takashi did not crash the ship. I could feel it when they made it there and landed successfully. I was with Dr. Hooper at the time and she recorded all the things that showed that he and I are still connected._

 _He is alive. I think he and the Holts were taken prisoner by an alien force. What I get from the link now suggests that they're forcing him to fight for them—he often feels sick at the idea of having to kill._

 _I don't have a way to contact Mrs. Holt. I'm pretty sure they survived as well, or at least Shiro thinks so. He worries about them a lot. Could you let her know for me? I don't know when I might be able to write you again._

 _I'm not at the Garrison anymore. Iverson lied to me about what they were going to do about the situation, then put me off. And then he was part of an attempt to break the bond between Shiro and me. So I ran. I'm somewhere at the moment where I can take care of myself and stay hidden—I can't risk the Garrison finding me in case they try to take the bond away again._

 _I will try to contact you if anything changes._

 _Keith_

* * *

Haggar spent every spare moment for _quintants_ watching Prisoner 117-9875 through a scrying spell. She had ordered total seclusion for now—she didn't want to risk him dying in an arena fight but she didn't want to bring him to anyone else's attention yet by having him brought to her lab. She wanted to examine what she was dealing with first.

This alien was intriguing, to say the least. She had Ulaz's report from the initial examination of a fairly typical bipedal race: average brains, hearts on the small side for their size, rather sturdy in muscle and bone structure. There was variation among them in size and coloring, comparing the records of this alien with the other two of his type.

She almost admired how this alien, when completely isolated, invented a discipline for himself. He would exercise his body several times a day. He took full advantage of the water supply in the cell both to drink and to try and keep himself clean. Haggar arranged for clean clothing to be delivered, curious to see how encouraging the discipline would affect this connection of his.

It was always there, this strange quintessence. After a few days of close study, Haggar was able to identify the structure: it was actually _two_ different life forces, but they harmonized together in a way she had never seen before, allowing both to reside in this alien's body without harm. This was unheard of in her long experience—it took magic to transfer quintessence from one body to another, to refine it into a form that could be transferred. And yet there was no sign of magic around this alien that she could find.

He would take several opportunities each _quintant_ to simply lie on the cot, close his eyes, and slip into a meditative state. At these points, the beacon of quintessence between him and the other source usually strengthened a little in power and intensity, though not at the level where she had first seen him. He would rise from these sessions with a jarring blend of contentment and stress. Whatever happened renewed him but also caused him worry.

Finally, on the twenty-seventh _quintant_ , the overseer dared to come to her directly. "Mistress, we need the prisoner you requisitioned. He drew notice from the betting public at his last victory and the bookmakers are clamoring to know when he will appear again."

Haggar's eyes narrowed as she considered. The prisoner's current situation was not giving her any new information. Perhaps it was time to replicate the environment where his quintessence had first shone so brightly.

"Very well. You may return him to his group."

The overseer made a face. "That group is getting boring. They've managed to create a strong team since losing the Velkyn. They're bringing down beasts with minimal injuries now."

"Then perhaps we should bring them a new challenge. Have them fight one by one."

"That would help, mistress, but that arena's main draw is the beasts."

"Perhaps we can change things a little, surprise the spectators with a well-known name. Have them take turns with Myzax."

* * *

Thank you for reading!


	6. Part 6

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize the characters, not mine. Playing in Dreamworks' sandbox.

I am on Tumblr and Twitter under "avidbeader". Come say hi!

* * *

There was no indication that this would be anything other than a team fight against a beast until they were lined up at the entrance. Shiro was in the middle, with Ch'varr beside him and Xi behind him. Matt was up front.

Then the master of ceremonies spoke over the loudspeakers. "Today, we will find the strongest among these gladiators. Those who survive the encounter with the mighty Myzax will go on to greater glory."

An enormous viewscreen materialized in the arena, showing the audience a large biped, holding a club with some kind of energy ball on the end. It swung the club and the energy ball took off, soaring around the arena before returning to its position on the base. The audience roared its appreciation.

The guard held out the sword to Matt. "You will be first."

Shiro could see Matt's body language—he was about to panic. Dimly over the thunder of the crowd, he heard the shaky, scared voice: "I'm not gonna make it! I'll never see my family again!"

"You can do this!" Shiro hissed back, but heard Matt's gasp of terror.

Shiro only hesitated an instant. He charged forward with a yell, shouldering the sentry and ripping the sword from it. "This is _my_ fight!" He swung with precision, bringing the flat of the blade hard against Matt's knee, and his friend cried out as he collapsed. Shiro grabbed what would be his last chance and threw himself down over Matt. "I want blood!"

And just as the sentries came to pull him off, he whispered, "Take care of your father!"

The last he saw of Matt was Xi bending over him and Matt's stunned expression as he realized just what Shiro had done.

* * *

Keith was plagued by nightmares most nights. Dreams where Iverson had succeeded in breaking his bond with Shiro. Dreams where Shiro and the Holts had actually crashed and died. Dreams where Shiro got away from the aliens that had taken him, only to lose himself in the vastness of space forever, unable to find home again.

Tonight was the most vivid dream since the moment he realized that the Kerberos crew had been kidnapped. He was in some kind of stadium, large crowds seated above him and cheering as he stepped forward to face an opponent. He was keyed up—something important had just happened. He had just taken an action that he might regret later, but he felt he had no choice. He had to help Matt in the only way he saw possible.

The opponent was large, head and shoulders above him. It swung a club, sending a sphere of energy around the arena in a circle wider than the various obstacles littering the floor. Keith's eyes narrowed as he heard an odd shift in the sound of the weapon as the sphere returned to the club and shrank in size briefly before expanding again. At that point the alien sent it out once more.

Keith's hand tightened around a sword and he waved it back and forth, getting a feel for its balance, such as it was. This was a poor weapon, mass-produced and clunky, but it was sharp. As he watched, the alien sent the sphere out a second time, openly grinning at him in anticipation. But as there had been no signal for the fight to begin, he waited.

 _The bond rose within him, Keith's presence united with his. Keith's mind zeroing in on the weapon he faced, Keith's hand on the blade._

The third time the sphere returned to the base, the sound changed again and the alien waited for the size of the sphere and the sound to return to normal before sending it out again. That was the key. This weapon had to recharge.

The blast of sound, like cannon fire, echoed through the arena, and the alien charged toward him, swinging the club to release the sphere. He dodged to one side immediately, noting how the sphere veered to follow him, and timed a leap behind a stone slab lying on one side so the sphere crashed against it. The alien pulled the projectile back to itself and swung again.

 _He could do this. Keith was with him._

This time he waited as the sphere hurtled toward him, then jumped up on the slab and leaped out of the way. The sphere tore a chunk out of the wall behind him and he heard the shouts of the spectators closest to the impact as he tried to make it behind the next obstacle—

 _The energy ball hit him in the shoulder, sending him to the ground as pain seared across his back. That had been much faster than he expected, but now was his chance. He got to his feet and charged the monster, swinging his sword as a diversion before plunging past it and whirling to slice its legs where human tendons would be._

 _The creature howled in pain and stumbled when it tried to move. He had gotten one leg and it was hamstrung, most of its mobility gone. He could hear the roar of the crowd shift in surprise and then eagerness at the possibility of an actual challenge to the reigning champion._

He switched to defense. He had to evade three times before he could attack again. He felt a growl start deep in his chest and rise through his throat, filling him with a new reservoir of stamina.

 _Shiro counted and ran and eluded. This time the second attack got him in the thigh, limiting his mobility for the third dodge. But the timing paid off and the next sword strike connected with the shoulder the alien used to throw its weapon. But it caught him around the neck with its other hand and sent him rolling._

One more cycle…one more cycle… He planned his path to bring himself around to the monster's off side. The crowd seemed to realize he was going the wrong way and shouted concern. The alien's swings were weaker, the sphere moving with less force. But he stuck to his plan…he had to lure the alien into swinging wide…

 _The alien sent its third attack, the aim off, and Shiro was already moving in. As he had hoped, the alien moved to swat at him with the club itself. He used the sword to bind up the club and wrench it from the creature's hand, sending it flying across the stadium floor. The energy sphere went obediently to its base, then fizzled out without its wielder. He immediately brought the sword to his opponent's throat. "Yield!"_

 _The crowd bellowed, approving the conquest but demanding death. Shiro stared at the creature. "I don't want to kill you. Will you yield?"_

 _It growled at him. "Foolish little unknown. If you kill me now, you will not risk facing me again. I will not be so merciful next time."_

" _I'll take that chance."_

Keith shot upright, gasping for breath. His hand flew to his shoulder, aching from the blow it had received, and then he felt his leg where a bruise ought to be.

His throat closed around sobs as he realized what he had seen through the bond. It was worse than he had imagined, so much worse. Shiro wasn't fighting in some alien army. He was being forced to fight for his life for sport, for the entertainment of those who had abducted him. Keith scrubbed at his face, letting the tears fall as he tried to absorb this terrifying revelation.

But he had a strong impression that Matt Holt, at least, was now safer than before. That was one tiny silver lining to cling to.

Keith lay back down, feeling that odd warming purr in his core again, calming him.

* * *

Colleen Holt disconnected the call, feeling depressed. It always hurt to speak with the Shiroganes, but she would not stop the weekly communication. They were the only ones who could talk to one another, support one another through their grief of knowing that the chances of their loved ones ever coming back home were slim at best.

The only recent thing was that Shiro's soulmate had sent a message to them. That gave them more proof of what Katie had overheard, that Keith knew Shiro was alive due to the soul bond. He had asked them to contact her because Shiro's emotional state indicated that Sam and Matt were still alive.

At the dining table, Katie was busy typing on her laptop, composing everything that would be needed to make one Pidge Gunderson look good enough for the Garrison. Transcripts, medical records, awards and extracurriculars were all being created along the lines of Matt's history to make a very tempting recruit for a future comms specialist.

Colleen noticed Katie pause and take a deep breath. She reached over and took her daughter's hand. "Are you sure about this?"

Katie's expression hardened, her chin jutting just like Matt's. They had both inherited their mother's stubborn streak.

"Yes, I'm sure. The Garrison is the only place with all the information about Kerberos on site. Getting access to their system and records is the fastest way to learn what they're hiding."

"I understand that. But, darling…even if you find undeniable evidence that they were taken by aliens, how is that going to help? Who knows how far away they are by this time?"

Katie's eyes turned steely. "Oh, I have ideas…"

* * *

Myzax had been a mistake.

Haggar paced in her quarters, grinding her teeth in frustration and sending little sparks of quintessence into the air around her fists as she clenched them. She had gained no new information from the fight and now the prisoner was the newest sensation in the arenas. It would be difficult to pull him for prolonged experiments without questions being asked.

There was a soft beep outside her door and she barked, "Come in!"

The door slid open and a druid moved into the room, bowing briefly. "Mistress, you wished to be informed if Prisoner 117-9875 had any change in status. He is currently in the arena infirmary being treated for injury."

"What happened?" Haggar started into the hallway and the druid followed.

"His opponent was a Roztiel. He was bitten on the shoulder and took quite a bit of venom before bringing it down."

"Did you observe any change in the quintessence?"

"Nothing new, mistress. The quintessence strengthened, as usual, and continues to come from the same direction."

That had been one of Haggar's first lines of questioning: where was the other anchor to this connection? The best they could determine so far was that it came from the same general location as Sector X-9-Y, where the prisoner and the other two had been collected.

They arrived at the infirmary and entered. Ulaz was standing over the prisoner, running a dermal repair unit over his bare shoulder. The medic looked up when she entered, giving the bare minimum of greeting. "Mistress."

She was not offended; she had long ago observed that Ulaz meant no disrespect. He was this brusque with everyone. She strode forward and pushed him away, looking closely at the prisoner with both her eyes and her senses.

"The venom has been expunged from his system, but there should be three _quintants_ of rest to give the muscle tissue time to fully recover."

Haggar nodded at that. "Tell the overseer five _quintants_. I wish to examine this specimen more closely."

Ulaz nodded at that, knowing exactly what Haggar meant. "Yes, mistress. Three _quintants_ is my recommendation."

She understood the implied warning. Ulaz was almost certainly doubling the usual recovery time because he still didn't know a great deal about the prisoner's physical makeup. Setting aside five _quintants_ meant that she could most likely begin her tests in two.

She noticed the prisoner was listening closely. His head was still bowed and his posture slumped, but there was a tenseness to him that had not been there before. He understood the time discrepancy and that something was about to happen.

She decided to give him some more to think about. "Take him to my lab. Cell Seven."

* * *

Shiro paced, sharing his tension with Keith. His soulmate's response was a calming aura of care. Shiro was relieved that Keith seemed to have recovered from the trauma of the attack at the Garrison. He was hidden, able to support himself thanks to the grant money from Dr. Hooper's study, and had found some kind of project to investigate.

Keith's company was keeping Shiro from losing it. This was the beginning of the third day in this woman's lab. He would give a lot to be back in his regular cell—there he had four walls and a full door to give the impression of privacy. Here three of the walls were made of thick glass, transparent and open to view for anyone in the room. He felt too self-conscious to maintain his exercise routine and spent more time on the bed, sinking into the soul bond. But his body cried out for movement and he compromised by pacing the length of the cell for long periods. On the plus side, the pacing seemed to bother the hooded ones, judging from their frequent sidelong glances.

The main doors slid open and the woman with white hair entered with half-a-dozen more of the masked hooded figures and four guards behind her.

Shiro instinctively moved to put his back to the one solid wall. The woman's mouth curved up into a smile that had no warmth in it at all.

"It seems our guest is reluctant. Please help him join us."

Two guards entered, seizing his arms and dragging him out. Shiro resisted, knowing it was useless: these Galra were as a rule much bigger than he was and it was four on one. But when one of them backhanded him across the jaw for struggling, the woman intervened.

"Careful, you fools! He must be ready to return to the ring in three _quintants_."

So, whatever was going to happen could not damage him _too_ much.

That was cold comfort.

The guards dragged him over to a platform, tilted nearly vertical, and pinned his arms and legs in place. A masked one touched a control on a panel nearby and Shiro felt bands spring in place over his wrists, chest, and ankles. He pushed against the restraints, but there was no give to them at all. He felt his unease tip toward fear…

…and Keith's presence surged forward, ready to help him.

The woman in charge was watching him closely and appeared to be disappointed about something. The hooded figures around her seemed to be waiting for something, as did the guards. When two of the guards traded glances and one shrugged, Shiro realized.

They wanted him to panic. They wanted him to struggle and beg for mercy. They wanted a show.

He would be damned if he gave them one. Just like in the arena, his only goal was survival.

"So, let's see what you're made of, prisoner."

She lifted her hand. Shiro had a millisecond to register that some kind of black lightning was leaping from her fingers before he was struck with blinding pain. He arched against the restraints, unable to breathe enough to scream.

 _NO!_ Keith pushed into the bond and Shiro felt the worst of the pain level off for himself even as Keith's presence registered it.

 _Keith! Don't!_ Shiro tried to send him a warning.

 _I am not letting you suffer alone, Shiro!_ Keith rebuffed it, his determination powering back.

The pain stopped as the woman, the witch, broke off her attack. She studied him in silence for several long minutes.

Shiro drew in ragged breaths and stared back as best he could, given that her hood hid her eyes. He could feel Keith, recovering more quickly than he expected. His soulmate braced himself.

One of the hooded figures twitched. "Mistress?"

The witch pursed her lips. "You are going to be an interesting challenge." She raised her hand again.

* * *

It was definitely a second presence.

Keith had begun keeping track after the third or fourth time he had felt that comforting presence that purred at him and warmed him. It was separate from his communications with Shiro, though it seemed to respond when the bond was filled with stress and fear. He took the large corkboard that was in the house and stripped it of the previous tenant's attempts to track Mothman's influence over Chinese money-laundering schemes. He tracked when he could feel the presence most strongly on its own: a bit at sunrise and the few times there had been rainfall.

There was also the list next to the graph showing the instances when the presence had seemed to join the soul bond, starting with the night close to a month after he had arrived here.

The night Keith had fully recognized what Shiro was being put through and realized that he was powerless to stop it. The night that Shiro had been forced to kill his opponent because the alien refused to recognize the concept of surrender. The night that the opponent had run onto Shiro's sword in what was clearly a suicidal move. The first time the hooded things brought him into a lab facility and tortured him, and every time since then.

The next time it rained, the storm blew in from the northwest and Keith noticed it took a while before the presence made itself known. The time after that, he felt the presence for an hour before the rain arrived, coming from the southwest.

Interesting that it had a definite direction when water was involved. Keith began taking the hoverbike out, mapping the area and trying to trace a potential source for this strange but welcome energy.

* * *

It was almost sickening, really, how easy it was. Pidge Gunderson was accepted into Galaxy Garrison on the strength of his records and a single telephone interview, in spite of being a year younger than the average first-year cadet. Pidge Gunderson arrived and took up residence in one of the few single dorm rooms, previously arranged by some careful incursions into the student database.

And then Pidge Gunderson was assigned to a team with an amiable engineer and a loudmouth pilot who only just made the cut because a more talented pilot had gotten himself expelled. Pidge did what he had to do as far as classes and training, but no more. Pidge spent most of his evenings building his array for picking up alien signals and then sneaking up to the roof and listening in. Every evening he took notes in a diary, gradually decoding a few basics like the numbering system. Much to his disappointment, there was never a mention of any Holt or Shirogane. But the tantalizing repetition of a single word drew Pidge's attention.

What was the Voltron?

* * *

Thank you as always for reading!


	7. Part 7

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize the characters, not mine. Playing in Dreamworks' sandbox.

I am on Tumblr and Twitter under "avidbeader". Come say hi!

* * *

They were calling him "Champion".

This made Haggar's position harder. It was normal for the druids to take successful gladiators and test out enhancements that could be applied to Galra in leadership positions. But Prisoner 117-9875's fame was spreading since his defeat of Myzax. He was a regular in the main arena and winning every match. Taking him out of rotation beyond what was necessary for healing his wounds would attract attention, and she did not want Zarkon to take notice of this alien until she understood the nature of his strange quintessence.

Her lord's obsession with extending and strengthening his life force was second only to that of locating the other pieces of Voltron. The drive to harvest more quintessence in greater amounts, to refine and distill it in greater strengths, was the heaviest burden on her and the Komar. If Zarkon knew of this alien's ability to host _two_ powerful quintessences at once, he would insist on immediate answers instead of allowing careful study.

She had to rely on a few of her most trusted druids to watch Champion's matches and report the occasions when his quintessence flared in that meld that never completely left him. They had achieved similar results by pulling him out briefly, usually grabbing an extra day or two after an injury was healed, and subjecting him to their own quintessence-borne attacks.

She could observe it. She could make it react. But Haggar was no closer to understanding _how_ this situation existed. It defied every fact collected through millennia of studying the energies of the universe. And Zarkon had finally realized that a new gladiator had earned a name from the crowds that packed the arenas and wanted to see him in action.

Then her luck changed.

* * *

Today's fight had one basic problem. His opponent was twice his size, which was the norm, but reasonably agile, which was unusual. Shiro's main advantage was his familiarity with the layout of the arena and its obstacles—they had not been moved for days. He ran, jumped, tumbled and flipped to avoid the alien's massive claws and fists, pinpricking with strike-and-run attacks whenever possible. The alien had over a dozen cuts from Shiro's sword, all bleeding, but not quickly enough to be a drain on its strength.

And not quickly enough to be a merciful killing.

Shiro dodged yet again, taking a chance when the alien overextended in trying to catch him. He ran and threw himself to the ground, sliding between the opponent's legs and swinging the sword. The crowd roared in appreciation for his "signature move" and he gave a mental eyeroll. How could this society be so impressed that Shiro understood basic anatomy and looked to hamstring his opponents as soon as possible?

He successfully severed one tendon and the alien howled in pain. That was a major shift in his favor, as the alien could no longer move with speed. He backed out of range of the long arms.

"Will you yield?" Shiro always tried to convince his opponent to stop at this stage.

The alien howled again and said…something.

 _Great. Translator failure._ It didn't happen often, but once in a while there was an alien whose brain structure was too different for the Galra translation process to work. These fights more often than not ended with Shiro having to kill the opponent simply because he could not communicate that surrender was an option.

The alien made a sudden move at him, pushing its weight from its uninjured leg. Shiro dodged in between a couple of the stone slabs to avoid its claws then drove his sword out from his defensible position as his opponent staggered, landing on the injured leg. He felt the blade catch on ribs as it threaded them and found the alien's heart.

Shiro inhaled sharply and pulled away, barely hearing the roar of the crowd over the blood rushing in his ears. As he watched, the alien swayed and clutched at one of the row of stone slabs, toppling it and starting a domino effect.

With Shiro still in between two of them.

He pushed to the opposite side, trying to sprint through so the slabs would be between him and the alien in case its death throes were more dangerous than Shiro had assumed. He was nearly clear—

And then he was pulled to the ground, pain exploding along his right arm.

* * *

Keith skimmed over his path along the cliffs in the early-morning sun, driving back to the caves for another day of exploration. The bond hummed, wavering in intensity. Shiro was in yet another fight, but his mental state indicated that it would be challenging, but not impossible. Keith kept a light touch on their connection as he headed for his current destination.

Every time he found a new cave and mapped it, he wondered yet again at the imaginations of the people who left the carvings. The styles varied, the stories varied, but he had already found two commonalities: a mystical blue lion and a date coming up in several months that foretold an arrival. As he wandered the caves, his skin tingled with the strength of the strange energy, calling him in a constant rumbling undertone: _find me find me find me._

His corkboard in the cabin was now littered with pictures and maps, sticky notes and string connecting wherever there was a link. He was already making plans in his head for what he might need on Arrival Night. He needed to purchase the best binocs he could afford in order to watch the skies. He needed to travel as lightly as possible to make maximum use of the hoverbike's speed, but he had to plan for any possibility. He needed to explore the abandoned town more for weapons or other useful things. He needed—

From out of nowhere, excruciating pain shot up his right arm. His hand lost the grip on his hoverbike as he screamed in agony. The bike veered sharply from the path and suddenly he was airborne as he went over the edge of the cliff.

Keith fought to clear his head: _divide, compartmentalize, worry about Shiro AFTER you survive this!_

He battled the pain, trying to curl his unresponsive fingers around the handlebar again, and focused on the ground that was coming up way too fast. He had to time this perfectly if it was going to work…

In his head the unknown energy thundered through like a roar, drowning out the pain just enough for him to concentrate.

 _NOW!_

Pop the antigrav to create bounce. Kick in the accelerator to send momentum forward instead of up. Keep control of the steering so the hovercells could recalibrate for the return of the ground underneath.

He barely hung on as the bike swerved and shot forward several dozen yards, steering with the wrist instead of the useless hand, but managed to bring it to a stop. He unclenched his other hand from the handlebar and brought it to his face, scrubbing at the tears he found there. His entire body was shuddering from the twin floods of his own adrenaline and Shiro's anguish. His right hand still felt pulverized and he tried his best to send back his support, to let Shiro know he was there, with him, no matter what.

He looked back to the top of the cliff and swallowed hard at how close he had come to being killed. His mind immediately went over what he had done with the bike, memorizing it against the possibility of practicing the move in safer circumstances in case he needed it to get away in the future.

But that was for later. Right now he had to take shelter in one of the lion caves and concentrate on Shiro.

The now-familiar purr reverberated in his essence, stronger than ever.

* * *

Handlers came in and lifted the slab off his arm. Shiro kept his eyes closed—he didn't want to see whatever might be left of it. He tried to distance himself from the pain but his focus was shaken when he realized Keith had come very close to crashing a vehicle. It was the Garrison all over again, where Keith's injury had made him crash a sim. Except this time Keith had come too close to dying.

They shoved him onto a stretcher, tossing the useless hand across his body. Shiro bit into his lip, drawing blood, as he stifled a scream.

This was worse than seeing it. He could _feel_ the wrongness, the places where shattered bones shifted and the spreading wet warmth of his blood. It rolled on its own as they turned a corner and Shiro fought down the bile rising in his throat.

Then a familiar voice hissed, "In here! Quickly, he's losing blood! Get it ready!"

Hands shifted Shiro's body to a stationary table and straps came down across him. He opened his eyes and recoiled at seeing several of the hooded things hovering over him, sending purple lightning dancing over him.

The voice came again. "The prosthetic is ready. It hasn't been tested thoroughly, but the Champion can handle that for us." One of the hooded figures leaned over him. Her white hair spilling down like a waterfall from where her face should be confirmed who it was. Haggar, the torturer. She stroked Shiro's cheek with one hand and he jerked away, trying not to imagine what new horrors she would have in store for him now that he was no longer able to perform.

"Yes, this will be a most interesting experiment. Stabilize him, take the limb, and install the replacement."

* * *

After the devastating injury to Shiro's arm, Keith's focus shifted. He still searched the caves every few days, but now he had a different plan. He had to try and get to Shiro, which meant finding a way to leave the planet.

The Garrison was a non-starter. Even if they were the type of institution that gave second chances, the Garrison had tried to break his bond with Shiro. He would not risk approaching them.

But the Garrison was Terra's primary facility for training people for space missions. The few smaller institutes didn't have the Garrison's resources—the one in Mumbai was the only one to have a team make it to Mars so far.

And even the Garrison had only just dared to try Kerberos last year, with Shiro's mission. Humanity would take decades, possibly centuries, to leave its own solar system.

But something was coming. All the carved stories on the cave walls pointed to something arriving from deep space in just a few months. If he could find them, he might be able to convince them to take him when they left again.

He just had to find them before anyone official did.

* * *

He didn't know how many hours the process had taken. It might have even been days. All he did know, once he swam up from unconsciousness, was that his throat was raw from screaming and something was hideously wrong with his arm. And before he had time to begin recovering, to adjust to the constant sparking jolts between the flesh of his arm and the tendrils of metal that threaded into his elbow and shoulder joints, he was pulled out of his cell and into a training room where a Galra with a similar prosthetic began showing him how to use it.

He barely slept for several nights after the procedure, lying awake in paranoia. Were those tingles of energy in his arm spreading further? Was the prosthetic designed to infiltrate his body, assume control of his heart, take over his mind? The single thing that kept him sane against the living nightmare was Keith's presence, reassuring him and steadying him.

 _I will find you. We will find each other again. We will survive this. We will not be divided._

The bond, and Keith's constant encouragement through it, sustained him as they took him out of his cell and thrust him into the staging room at the arena. He looked at the array of weapons on the walls with haunted eyes, at the sword that had become his preferred weapon.

He looked down at the smooth metal hand that had clenched involuntarily, just as his own hand might. He lifted the fist and watched as something in him flexed, causing a purple glow around the hand.

Ignoring the armory, he walked back to the door.

* * *

Two days. It was two days until the Arrival.

Keith had everything he could possibly think of ready. His excursions into the abandoned town closest to the cabin, his original destination when he had run from the Garrison, had yielded excellent results. He found enough parts to bring the hoverbike into top condition. He didn't find much in the way of guns or other weapons, but the remaining inventory in a hardware store had enough ingredients to rig some homemade explosives in case he needed them. He was going on the assumption that whatever was coming could land anywhere in a hundred-mile radius around the caves, which meant that the Garrison could easily track it.

He was restlessly polishing his knife, the strange symbol on the hilt unwrapped for the moment, when he felt a spike of fear from Shiro slam into him. He laid the knife aside and closed his eyes, concentrating on the bond and ready to flood it with all the support he could muster.

And, for the first time, he was awake and could see what Shiro saw.

 _The white-faced Galra medic took down the two guards without warning, then did something to his metal arm. He gave a name—Ulaz—and claimed that something called the Blade of Marmora was on his side. He released Shiro from the cuffs holding him down and told him he had to return to Terra and find a blue lion. Shiro had to get Voltron before the Galra Empire could._

 _Shiro was almost there when he collided with a transport cart and alerted a pair of sentries. He ran and opened the pod that was waiting, tossing one sentry away from him. But the drug in his system was slowing his reactions and the second sentry grabbed him from behind. He had failed, he wasn't going to get away—_

 _And the explosion knocked him into the pod, cracking the sentry in half as the doors closed on it and the pod launched._

Keith jerked into awareness as Shiro slid into unconsciousness. The bond was rising within him, almost singing in anticipation. Of all the scenarios he had imagined when he devised his desperate plan, not once had he come close to the truth of who was arriving.

Shiro was on his way home.

* * *

Pidge Gunderson had earned a reputation around the Garrison. Every single time someone mentioned the Kerberos failure in his hearing, he argued. He claimed that there was no evidence at all to support the claim that Captain Shirogane had crashed. He questioned the disappearance of Shirogane's soulmate, who would have been able to prove the pilot's survival. He lambasted the Garrison's budget-driven decision against having a rescue team in place on Mars. These arguments and the rumors they produced had caused him to be pulled aside by a few of the teachers and only the threat of being sent to Commander Iverson would make him shut up.

It was another strange thing about this strange student. People had noticed that he never mentioned his family, never got letters or care packages or phone calls. He was almost always alone unless doing a team exercise: retreating to his room, the library, or sitting by himself at meals.

Pidge Gunderson continued to be a poor fit with his team. McClain and Garrett were already fast friends and they tried, each in his own way, to include their third. He ignored them outside of training. He continued to slip away at night and scan the heavens for communications. He listened desperately for any hint of a familiar name, jotting down any repeated references and trying to decode them. But the only thing among the chatter that kept cropping up was "Voltron". Judging from the varying tones of voice, these aliens were searching for it and getting more and more desperate.

And then it was the first day of sim training under Iverson's direction. Pidge ground his teeth as they proceeded to run the Kerberos rescue scenario, wondering why such training had not been happening _before_ the mission was launched. And then he failed to hide his frustrations with his teammates, snarking as Lance bragged about his piloting skills just before crashing spectacularly. Hunk had a weak stomach for the motion of the sim, eventually puking in the gear box. And once they emerged, Iverson was there to berate them for their miserable showing.

Later on, sitting under the stars, Pidge would admit to himself that Lance had done him a favor, silencing him as he began to rant at Iverson about Kerberos. Staying under Iverson's radar was a priority—the commander was a bully and went for the easy solution too often, but he wasn't stupid.

And then the chatter in his headphones picked up exponentially. He focused, trying to tease more meaning out of the rapid gibberish that sounded almost panicky over the Voltron. Was it something they were searching for? Had they found it or lost it?

"You come up here to rock out?"

* * *

 _Deep in a cavern, the river flowing sweetly in front of her, she waited as she had waited for millennia. There had been a few times while she waited when the call surfaced from a distance, on some other area of this planet from her resting place, from the nearest neighboring stars. None had ever come close enough to feel her presence in return._

 _Until this little, divided one felt her and began seeking her._

 _She was amused and puzzled by this one. His quintessence was indeed the stuff of paladins, but not for her. This one was more likely to fit her sister of Fire. Or of Sky. But her sisters were far away and she was here. She reached out to the little one, offering a thin trickle of comfort and companionship, and was surprised when he responded in kind._

 _It was a fascinating thing, how his quintessence was so firmly entwined with another's that they would never stand apart and alone again. This joining of two into one was something she had never seen before arriving on this planet; it was unique to this species as far as she could tell._

 _The little one's other half approached. She observed as their bond, already strengthened many times over by the immense distance, swelled in power as the distance closed. She understood that this was a new thing._

 _She wondered if they would be able to survive it once they were reunited. Or if she could help them survive it._

* * *

Thank you as always for reading!


	8. Part 8

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize the characters, not mine. Playing in Dreamworks' sandbox.

I am on Tumblr and Twitter under "avidbeader". Come say hi!

* * *

She left the details to her druids. They could punish the guards that permitted themselves to be taken down. They could search for the traitorous Ulaz.

She had bigger things to do.

The second Haggar had removed Champion's ruined hand, she had encased the mangled flesh in a unit designed to measure quintessence. The first step was successful: the wreck of a hand, magically preserved in a still-living state, showed the presence and fluctuations of his mysterious quintessence, allowing her a permanent barometer of Champion's link with the other without having to physically watch him.

It also gave her unlimited access for further analyzing the quintessence. It had taken almost a full lunar cycle, but she was finally able to separate the two halves of the meld, keeping them apart for brief moments before they coalesced again.

And if it were just another experiment, just another study of a random alien's quintessence, she would have scrapped it. One of the two halves showed Galra characteristics.

Somehow Champion's quintessence had been tainted by a Galra. She didn't know how—she was the only one who handled the destroyed limb between the body and the unit and she had shielded everything thoroughly out of habit. While Champion had taken numerous injuries from Galra fighters in the arena—including the nasty head wound that had turned a shock of his hair white—their medical protocol ought to be sound enough for cleansing such wounds. And the second quintessence was very similar to the Galra-corrupted one, suggesting that the other was the same species, in a sector that the Galra had only just begun scouting.

But in spite of the Galra contamination, the device worked as she wished it. She could let Champion perform for Zarkon, who was toying with the idea of turning the alien to the Galra cause and testing him on the Red Lion. There had been a few sessions with Zarkon's team of persuaders. Those had actually been helpful to Haggar, allowing her to see that the quintessence meld responded to mental and emotional attacks at an even stronger level than physical assault.

But for now, her device served a new purpose. The flesh called to itself. The quintessence sought its origin. She would be able to track Champion's location as soon as the pod he was in dropped out of hyperdrive.

* * *

The autopilot was driving him crazy.

He was in a spacecraft, in the pilot's seat, for the first time in nearly a year, _and he couldn't fly it._ It was like being back in early training, next to an instructor, watching but not allowed to touch, not allowed to take control.

But he didn't dare change any of Ulaz's settings. His rescuer had entered the Galra coordinates for Terra and programmed something called a hyperdrive that allowed for incredibly fast interstellar travel. Shiro had to settle for studying the control panels intently, learning the layout of the craft as it compared to a Garrison ship.

But Keith was with him, urging him on.

Shiro leaned back for a few minutes, closing his eyes to try and ward off a headache that was building. And suddenly he was seeing through Keith's eyes as Keith prepared. His soulmate knew he was coming and was doing everything he could to be ready. Shiro was a bit astonished, wondering where the diffident boy from that first combat class had gone. This Keith moved with purpose and surety, focused on his goal. This Keith no longer felt a little too young for him.

He would see this Keith soon.

Sensing his presence, Keith sent back affection and anticipation.

The ship jerked and shifted from hyperdrive into normal space. Shiro instinctively reached for the controls, then looked up through the viewscreen.

His eyes widened as he realized that the ship was already inside Terra's atmosphere and coming in way too fast. He had to try and slow the descent!

His hands flew across the strange controls, searching for any way to decelerate. A screen turned red and he felt a shudder through the transport—it felt like a turbine had stopped, if he were in a jet. Velocity dipped, but now the ship veered sharply to the left, well to the north of the landing coordinates.

And then he hit earth. He got his arms up to protect his face and head as he slammed into the control panel, but was flung back in the whiplash, his head striking the hard side of the pilot's seat. He sent one last frantic call to Keith as he lost consciousness.

* * *

Shiro woke and realized two things. The first was that Keith had not found him yet—he was coming but having to improvise for not being the first one there.

The second was that he was strapped down to a table.

The flashbacks overwhelmed him: the pain of the torture sessions, the agony of the procedure that had taken his hand and replaced it with the weapon. He clenched his teeth to hold in the screams.

"He's awake!"

Figures in Terran hazmat suits leaned over him, waving scanners across his body.

 _Ulaz. Blue Lion. Voltron._

Keith was closer. He had done something that should get everyone's attention soon and was moving in.

Someone moved to put a tourniquet on his left arm.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

"Calm down, Shiro. We just need to keep you quarantined until we run some tests."

"No, you don't understand! Aliens are coming! They're after a weapon that was hidden here! We have to find Voltron!"

One of the medtechs recoiled from his right side. "Look at this! His arm! It's been replaced with a cyborg prosthetic!"

"Put him under! We don't know what that thing can do!"

"No! NO! Don't put me under! You have to listen to me!" Shiro thrashed against the straps in a panic but one of the medtechs seized his head and another pressed an injector to his neck.

 _Keith! Help me!_

* * *

Pidge finished throwing laptops and equipment into his backpack and slid down the hill after Lance and Hunk. The minute he'd pointed out the person coming in on the hoverbike, Lance had gone competitive and insisted that _he_ would be the one to rescue his idol.

Pidge would never understand Lance. Did it really matter who got credit for the rescue as long as they got a chance to speak to Shirogane?

His emotions swung from hope that Shirogane might actually be able to share what had happened to the rest of the crew to anger that Iverson's people hadn't even _considered_ asking about them before knocking the pilot out. He was obviously trying to communicate a warning, a major one, and they _ignored_ it. All Iverson cared about was keeping his lies going.

Good thing Pidge Gunderson wasn't interested in the Garrison as a career.

* * *

In three swift moves, the medtechs went down. Keith leaped over the third as he fell and ran to the gurney. White hair spilled across the captive's forehead and for one instant he felt crippling despair. This was supposed to be Shiro…

Keith reached out to the man's face and turned it toward him.

Their bond surged at his touch, making him stagger. It _was_ Shiro.

Shiro with a patch of white hair and a deep scar across his face. Shiro with a body hardened by months of being forced to fight for his life. Shiro with a smooth metal limb replacing his right hand.

But it was Shiro.

Keith sliced the straps with his dagger and heaved his soulmate up. The bond throbbed everywhere their skin touched and Keith's knees almost buckled. Shiro had always been tall and broad-shouldered, but the added muscle mass made him heavy. He was starting to worry that they wouldn't be able to move fast enough when a voice interrupted.

"No, no, no you don't! I'm saving Shiro!"

A boy that looked to be Keith's age stalked through the door and took Shiro's other arm, sharing his weight. Two others who would have fit perfectly on a flashcard teaching _big_ and _small_ stood in the doorway, watching with wide eyes.

Keith didn't bother to reply. They were a godsend—they could help get Shiro to the hoverbike and then he and his soulmate would be off.

Except that the Garrison team was coming back much sooner than he had hoped and they all boarded a hoverbike that wasn't designed to hold five.

* * *

One harrowing chase and one successful cliff dive later, they made it to the cabin. The big guy helped Keith move Shiro onto the bed in the bunker. Keith checked Shiro's pulse and pupils while the short kid described how the medtechs had sedated him—he would be out for a while yet. Keith tucked a blanket around him and firmly told himself that he could leave for a few minutes. There was nowhere else for the other three to go and he needed to settle them in the cabin.

He directed the others into the main room, waving at the futon in indifferent invitation. He grabbed a bottle of cold water from the fridge and drank, getting the dust from the trip out of his throat. He tried to focus – the bond had not settled down at all from the first instant of him touching Shiro.

The three of them looked at him and he looked back. Obviously there were questions that they all had, but no one was sure where to start. Then the big guy's stomach growled loudly.

The other two broke into giggles and Keith snorted a little. He waved to the corner that served as a kitchen. "Help yourselves."

The big guy moved toward him first, holding out a hand. "Thanks, man. My name's Hunk."

He shook. "Keith."

That got the short one's attention. "Wait a minute, that's how you knew to come after Shiro! You're Keith Kogane!"

"Uh…yeah?"

"My mom and the Shiroganes, we've been worried sick!"

"Okay…"

"Sorry, sorry. I'm Katie Holt, Matt's sister."

That put a couple of puzzle pieces in place, but the reaction of the other two kept Keith off balance.

"Wait, what? Pidge? You're a girl?" The thin one was clearly stunned.

"Huh. Okay, that explains a few things. Why were you in the Garrison under another name?" Hunk asked.

"Long story. Short version is I got banned from the Garrison for hacking into Iverson's computer and had to find another way in."

Keith grinned at that. "Good for you."

The thin one was clearly still at sea. "Okay, Pidge is a girl and you two know each other. Any more surprises?"

Pidge…Katie…adjusted her glasses. "Oh, no. Not like that, Lance. I just know who he is. He's Shiro's soulmate."

Hunk had his mouth full of granola bar but his expression showed interest as Lance began talking again.

"Soulmate, huh? Yeah, I remember that getting mentioned a few times around campus. Wacky shit. We had a case in our neighborhood, some woman who lived alone and must have been forty and one year at Halloween she was giving out candy like everyone else but when she handed some M&Ms to this one kid who had moved to the neighborhood that summer…wham! He was like, eight. _Awk_ -ward! They got that shit broken by Christmas, you'd better believe it!"

He paused, clearly expecting someone to reply. He was not expecting to see Keith's face drain of color or the concerned reactions of the other two.

Katie moved forward. "Keith, are you all right?"

Hunk also stepped up. "Dude, you're not gonna pass out, are you?"

Keith swallowed hard. "No…no, I'm fine."

"You are not fine! You look like you saw a ghost!" Lance flapped his arms, unsettled at Keith's reaction.

"Sorry. It's just that…they tried, at the Garrison. They tried to break the soul bond between Shiro and me."

Katie's eyes widened. "That was you! That night in the faculty building!"

"What?"

"Three men were dragging you somewhere, and then you started yelling. That was the night I broke into Iverson's computer. I set off the security alarms to give you a chance to get away. You were _screaming_ at them."

Keith ran a hand over his face, fighting the memories. "Yeah, that was me. Thank you."

"And thank _you!_ They were so busy going after you that I was able to pull the video files that proved Shiro didn't crash. That's when my mom and I decided I needed to infiltrate the Garrison as Pidge Gunderson." She stepped up to Keith and wrapped her arms around him. "Seriously, I'm glad they didn't catch you. I've read about broken soul bonds…it's not pretty."

Lance shifted from one foot to the other. "Sorry I brought it up."

Keith shrugged, returning Katie's hug awkwardly. It had been a very long time since anyone—Shiro—had touched him in a caring way. "It's okay. You didn't know." He moved away as Katie loosened her grip. "I'm going to sit with Shiro until he wakes up. You guys can hang out here."

* * *

 _Where am I?_

The first thing Shiro noticed as his awareness returned was that he was warm. It had never been warm enough on the ships or in the cells or in the arena.

The second thing was that his bond with Keith was practically vibrating, it was so intense. His first impulse was to worry. The Garrison had found him. _Are they going to try and break the bond again? Is Keith safe?_

The third thing was someone holding his left hand.

He tightened his grip instinctively and heard someone draw in an anxious breath as the bond increased in force.

"Shiro?"

He squeezed his eyes shut. If he kept his eyes shut, he could stay in this dream where he was warm and Keith was holding his hand.

It got better. Keith was smoothing his hair back with the other hand, sending sizzles across his skin.

"Shiro?"

The dream wasn't fading. It was getting more tangible, more real. His essence hummed at every touch.

"Keith?"

The weight in his flesh hand shifted and he heard someone move, sitting next to him. The fingers interlocked with his and a second hand wrapped around their joined hands. Their bond pulsed, verging on painful.

"I'm here, Shiro. You're home."

Shiro drew a deep, shuddering breath, steeling himself for the disappointment, and opened his eyes.

Soft yellow light illuminated the room. Not the never-ending purple of the Galra and not the harsh white of the Garrison containment unit. He blinked and focused, seeing the person sitting beside him.

The dark hair that used to just brush his collar now spilled down onto his shoulders. The graceful jawline and cheekbones were sharper, as if he had lost weight. But the eyes were the same deep indigo that had caught his attention as they took their first hesitant steps into the bond.

"Keith…" Shiro breathed, his voice barely audible.

Keith leaned forward and pressed his lips to Shiro's forehead. The bond intensified further, stronger than anything they had felt before. Shiro pulled his hand from Keith's grip so he could embrace him fully, pressing his face into Keith's neck.

And found himself clinging desperately to Keith who clutched back as their bond flared again. They were tossed around in each other's memories of the time apart, drowning in flashbacks of pain and terror, isolation and misery. The bond had responded to the extreme distance by growing stronger and now there was nowhere to put the excess, no way to cram the genie back into its bottle. The power of the connection was about to engulf them until they would no longer be able to tell which was which…

Then Keith heard the lion's roar, giving him focus.

Shiro heard the second roar.

* * *

Half a universe away, a glass case exploded, failing to contain the surging quintessence inside. Haggar shrieked, unable to stop the destruction of Champion's hand as it disintegrated. She flew around the lab, scanning readouts from various instruments frantically.

Then she found what she needed.

"Tell Zarkon that the escaped prisoner is in Sector X-9-Y!"

* * *

 _The two halves were whole once more, together in body now as well as spirit. As she had anticipated, the intensity of the quintessence-meld threatened to overwhelm them. Her little one reached out blindly for help and she answered. She sent forth her own energy, the soothing, life-giving essence of water, to wash away the worst of the surging forces and sustain the two of them._

 _Together they rode the wave until it crested and retreated into a more manageable state. Her efforts were causing a ripple effect—anyone nearby was going to feel a groundswell of the energy through their quintessence—but she kept up the effort. Gradually the worst of the excess dissipated into the ambient energies of their surroundings as she siphoned it away from the pair. The bodies of the two small ones relaxed, still entwined with one another. She sent out one more flow of energy to calm the area around them like the surf smoothing out sand._

 _And stopped in shock when her quintessence touched a new presence near them. It sparkled with azure light, calling to her like no other had for thousands of years._

 _This was her new paladin. It had to be._

* * *

Thank you as always for reading!


	9. Part 9

**The good news:** Have another chapter!

 **The bad** **news:** I have now caught up with what I had already written and updates will be more erratic as I try to wrap up "Scattered" and pay attention to some fics in other fandoms that have been neglected for far too long. But there will be more of this!

* * *

In the cabin, the trio quickly grew bored. Katie pulled out her laptop and opened the program she was using to try and decipher more of the alien code. After she slapped his hand away from her keyboard yet again, Hunk leaned over her shoulder to watch as she dug out the diary she used to record the terms she had defined. He frowned, looking at a series of numbers on one page.

"Do those numbers really repeat like that, the way you wrote them?"

She looked up at him. "Yeah. So?"

He looked around the room and saw a few large sheets of paper on the makeshift coffee table. He grabbed one and a pen and quickly marked off a graph. "Read them to me?"

She did and watched as Hunk plotted the numbers and then linked them, showing a line moving up and down. "I think this could be a Fraunhofer line, don't you?"

Katie tilted her head, trying to place the term. "Um, I suppose?"

"You know, the number describing the emission spectrum of an element, only, I don't think this element exists on Terra."

Her eyes widened and she sat up. "Holy shit! Maybe it's the Voltron thing!"

"Could be…and I think can build a machine to look for it, like a Voltron Geiger counter."

Lance had been pacing back and forth, barely following the conversation, but stopped at that. "Hunk, I always knew you were a genius!"

Katie set her laptop aside and looked around the cabin. "Can you do it with the stuff that's here?"

"Maybe, let's see."

Lance scowled at that. "Why don't we just go ask Keith?"

"Lance, we are _not_ interrupting them!" she snapped. "You can fangirl over Shiro all you want later, after two soulmates who have been separated by _light-years_ for _almost eighteen months_ have had the chance to at least say hello!"

He pouted, but stayed silent.

Hunk seemed to know what to do in order to distract him. "Lance, look in that box over there. I think I see a regular Geiger counter. If we start there maybe I can convert it and have it ready by morning."

Lance started for the box in question, but reeled and dropped to his knees when the earth around them began shaking. Hunk cowered next to Katie. "Earthquake?!"

Katie's fingers flew across her keyboard as she brought up a government tracker. "Nothing's showing up on the seismic monitors." The three of them crouched, waiting as their surroundings continued to shake, building and cresting and finally fading. Lance's head jerked and he looked around in confusion. Katie frowned at him. "What is it?"

"Uh, nothing, I guess. For a minute I thought I heard something…like an animal. Are there wolves or coyotes around here?"

"Maybe, but I didn't hear it."

"Must be imagining things. It sounded more like a lion roaring anyway."

Hunk snorted at that. "Yeah, no. No lions around here."

* * *

As their bond slowly calmed down into a state where they could think again, Keith pushed himself up from where he had fallen across Shiro's chest. Shiro reached up and pushed a lock of Keith's hair out of his face, tucking it behind his ear. "No time for a barber, I take it?" he joked lightly.

Keith blushed slightly and shook his head.

"I like it. It suits you."

The blush deepened, but Keith smiled. Shiro pushed himself to sitting so he could wrap his arms around his soulmate again. The bond shuddered but stayed at its new, just-tolerable level.

Keith hid his face in Shiro's shoulder. "I missed you so much. Knowing what was happening to you and not being able to help—"

Shiro pulled back a little at that, putting his right hand under Keith's chin to tilt his face up and meet his eyes. "You _did_ help! I can't count how many times the fact that you were there kept me going. You kept me focused! You… You shared the pain, the fear…everything! I would have killed myself or gone insane without you."

Tears gathered in Keith's eyes as Shiro shifted to stroke his cheek with one thumb. Then he noticed what he was using to touch Keith and started to pull away. His awareness spread to the scars riddling his face and body, the shock of white hair, all prematurely aging him.

Keith sensed the change in his thoughts and clapped his hand over Shiro's prosthetic and held it in place. "This is _not_ going to make me regret being bonded to you. Scars aren't going to make me regret it. The only thing I regret is how much you suffered and how much time we've lost." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Shiro's nose, where the mark cut across it, and then moved down to his lips.

Shiro responded immediately, hungry for more of the first warm and kind contact he'd felt in ages. He had been careful not to push Keith very far physically in the first months of their union, knowing that some people would disapprove of their relationship, soul bond or no. But now, with the reality of Keith being restored to him in spite of the odds, Shiro wasn't going to hold back any more. He licked at Keith's mouth, asking him to open to him, and Keith did so eagerly, his own tongue meeting Shiro's as they deepened the kiss. Their bond hummed with energy, strong but manageable.

As they paused to catch their breath, Shiro slid over and held up the blanket in invitation. Keith pulled off his jacket, belt, and boots before sliding into the bed to lie beside him.

The familiar purr sounded in Keith's mind, very content with the situation. Shiro hesitated, looking around. "Do you…have a cat?"

Keith snorted and shook his head. "No, I think I've got a guardian angel."

* * *

She had done her part. Zarkon had sent the nearest warship, scouting for the Blue Lion, in pursuit of Champion. She had deceived her lord, carefully implying that Champion might be after the Lion himself, to get him to divert resources away from his obsession. Zarkon didn't think chasing after one escaped prisoner was worth it, even a prisoner as renowned as Champion. But to find another piece of Voltron…

Haggar retreated into her lab as soon as she was able and gathered every last shard of the shattered containment unit. The flesh from Champion was gone, vaporized by the sudden overload of energy, but the bits of the unit retained the tiniest impressions of the quintessence. With this as her guide, she could go into deep meditation and continue her search.

* * *

Katie went back to her efforts with the alien transmissions while Hunk worked on altering the Geiger counter. With nothing better to do, Lance spread out on the futon and soon his snores echoed in the cabin. Katie glanced over as Hunk deftly rebuilt his device with the array of tools he had found by poking around the room.

"How do you stand it, sleeping in the same room as him?"

"He usually doesn't snore like that, actually. And we both have noise-canceling headphones since our sleep patterns don't always sync up."

"Really? Didn't think those were allowed, in case you miss a Garrison alarm."

"They also flash the lights in the rooms if one goes off. Kind of impossible to miss one way or the other."

Something pinged on her laptop and Katie sat up. It was a message alert from her mother. Her mother knew not to contact her directly unless it was an absolute emergency. She opened the message and read it.

"Oh, fuck no."

Hunk looked up from his work. "What is it?"

"One of Mom's friends who's a journalist on the science beat just contacted her. He keeps her in the loop because of Dad and Matt. He got wind that the Garrison is planning to announce the three of us as dead due to a training accident!"

"What the hell? I need to contact my moms!"

"So will Lance! And we need to let the Shiroganes know he's alive, too!" She typed furiously back for a few minutes and then held out her laptop to Hunk. "Okay, I've let my mom know the basics and asked her to contact Shiro's family. Here, I've got an anonymous video caller and a messenger up. Use whichever will get you through to your folks. I hate to do this, but we better get Keith and Shiro."

* * *

They had progressed to trailing kisses across each other's necks and Shiro's hands were working their way under Keith's shirt when a knock sounded at the door.

"Keith? It's Katie, I'm so sorry, but is Shiro awake? We've got trouble coming from the Garrison!"

Shiro paused. _Should I know who she is?_ Before he could chase the thought down, he realized that Keith's pulse rate had skyrocketed as the skin under his lips trembled. But his soulmate responded instantly, "What kind of trouble? Do we need to clear out of here?"

"No, we need to get Shiro in touch with his parents. The Garrison's going to announce that Lance, Hunk, and I were killed in a training accident and it looks like they're burying the fact that Shiro returned."

Shiro felt chills down his spine at the implications of that news. It had been mere hours—wasn't the Garrison going to try and search for them first? How long did they think they could keep the existence of aliens a secret?

"Okay, give us a minute." Keith climbed out of the bed and moved across to a footlocker against the far wall. He dug around inside it and pulled out a very familiar black vest.

Shiro pushed himself up, his voice drawling in a slightly disbelieving "Whaaat?"

"I was in a rush when I packed some stuff, in case I needed to leave in a hurry. Got some of your clothes mixed in. There's a bathroom, you can shower and get out of those rags." He held out the vest.

Shiro stood and accepted it, along with the black jeans and a gray tee. He shifted the clothing into his metal arm and reached out with the other to pull Keith close. He paused for a second, blinking in surprise. Before the mission, Keith had barely reached his chin in height—now the top of his head was up to Shiro's nose.

He dipped his head and gave Keith one more kiss before the two of them exited the bunker and entered the house.

* * *

Lance was grumpy due to being woken up after a too-short nap at three in the morning and to the fact that Shiro had disappeared immediately into the bathroom before he had a chance to even introduce himself. He watched as this guy Keith worked to assemble some kind of meal from his stash.

He didn't get it. He was aware of the whole soulmate thing, but had very little first-hand experience with it other than the creepy Halloween connection and one of his cousins meeting and marrying hers. He didn't see why a legendary pilot like Shiro would have some mystical bond with this kid. He was scrawny, his hair was a goddamn mess, and he had weird eyes.

He vaguely remembered the guy's name from the Garrison: a workaholic type that never spared time for any kind of socializing, top of the fighter class until something happened and he disappeared. And then, as Commander Iverson loved to point out, Lance got promoted to fighter class _only_ because a better candidate had flunked out over discipline issues.

 _Oh, shit._

Keith hadn't left due to discipline issues. He'd run away because the Garrison had tried to break the soul bond. If Keith hadn't run, Lance would still be stuck in cargo class, not good enough.

Because of this skinny mullet-head who was _bonded_ with Shiro.

Lance leaned against the table and poked a dismissive finger at the open box of powdered milk. Keith was stirring a pitcher vigorously, adding powder to the water from a measuring cup. "What's the matter, real food not good enough for you?"

Keith glared at him. "No, I cut the perishables out so there wouldn't be anything left behind to rot."

"Left behind?" Pidge's head perked up at that.

"Yeah. I didn't know who or what was coming tonight, but my plan was to intercept them and try to hitch a ride when they left."

Hunk looked up from his almost-reassembled Voltron detector. "Dude, why would you do that?"

Keith shrugged. "It was the only way I could think of to find Shiro."

Pidge looked impressed at the plan while Hunk was slightly awed. Lance frowned. "Seriously? You'd throw your lot in with a set of totally unknown aliens who might think you were food or something just to try and get to Shiro? With an entire galaxy to search?"

 _"_ _Lance!"_ Pidge's voice cracked like a whip.

Keith held up a hand to stop her. He stared at Lance with those strange purple-looking eyes and suddenly looked a lot older than he was.

"Given what you said earlier and what you said just now, I take it you have no real knowledge of soulmates."

"I have a cousin who said some guy was her soulmate. But he was some rando she met while traveling. My dad said she lied just so her parents wouldn't argue when they pushed to get married."

Keith swallowed, visibly trying to control himself. "You have no knowledge. The soul bond is a real thing and at times it can be almost unbearable. You saw that Shiro's hand is missing? _I felt it when it happened._ I was driving. The pain was so bad I nearly wrecked my hoverbike. Every injury he's had, every time they tortured him just to study what it did to him, I felt it. And yes, I was going to find a way to get to him, because I couldn't see any way he was going to survive and return to me."

Unable to give him the last word, Lance snarled, "What makes you so special, that you end up bonded with someone like Shiro?"

Keith reached into a cabinet drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors. "I'm not special. But that something in me that makes a soul bond possible, that something that you and everyone else in this world has? It makes me special to him and him special to me in a way that nothing else can replace." He walked over to the bathroom door and tapped on it, ignoring Lance's scowl.

* * *

Shiro cleaned up and began dressing, then paused in jeans and sleeveless black undershirt, looking at the long sleeves on the gray shirt. He wasn't sure about having the sleeve cover the cybernetic prosthetic – after the implantation, the slave uniforms he received had a short sleeve on one side, designed to tuck into the edges of the unit.

He opened the tiny medicine chest, looking for scissors. _Don't look in the mirror…don't look in the mirror…_

There was a tap at the door. "Come in, Keith."

As the door opened, revealing Keith with a pair of scissors in his hand, a voice came floating in. "Okay, that was just creepy! Don't do that!"

Shiro chuckled at that and Keith's mouth twisted up in a smirk. He whispered, "Oh, we're going to do that as often as possible in his presence."

Shiro raised his eyebrows at that. While Keith had been quiet and introverted away from Shiro, he hadn't been actively antagonistic to others…

…unless provoked. He resolved to keep an eye on the situation.

Shiro heard a familiar voice coming from a speaker and looked around. He froze when he got a good look at the person sitting with a laptop. "Matt?"

They looked up and Shiro realized immediately that this wasn't Matt. This was someone younger and smaller, but the hair, eyes, and shape of the face were the same. Something teased at Shiro's memory.

"That's Katie Holt, Matt's sister," Keith murmured in his ear. "She knew that things were wrong with the Garrison's cover story over the loss of the Kerberos mission. She disguised herself as a boy and enrolled under a false identity to try and learn more."

Shiro blinked at that. Matt was a dedicated student and scientist, but he had never shown that kind of steel. On the other hand, he wasn't the one searching for his missing family.

Keith continued, "The skinny one is Lance, who seems to worship the ground you walk on and thinks I've somehow tricked you into a relationship. The big guy is Hunk. They turned up just as I was trying to get you out of the quarantine area."

Shiro nodded. Katie looked up from her laptop. "Shiro, come here!"

He went over and sat as Katie tugged his arm down. She pushed the laptop over so he would be in the view of the webcam. He saw Colleen Holt's face on the screen and she gasped, putting her hand to her mouth. "Oh, Shiro! What happened to you?"

He looked down, feeling the weight of the missing Holts sink in. "I…it's a long story. I should tell you what I know about Sam and Matt instead."

She swallowed, clearly steeling herself for the worst.

"The three of us were taken together, alive. The Galra, the aliens, separated Sam from us in just a few days because of his age. All I could get was that he was sent to some kind of work camp—the Galra use the weaker members of the races they subjugate as slave labor." Shiro looked down, ashamed that he couldn't tell her anything more than that.

"And Matt?"

"He and I were sent to the gladiator rings."

Colleen and Katie both looked at him in horror, realizing why Shiro carried scars and assuming that Matt had not survived.

"For a while we were on the same team, fighting to bring down large animals for their entertainment. But one day they changed it and were going to send us in one by one against a famous fighter. They chose Matt to go first.

"He was about to panic—there was no way he was going to survive that fight. I…I faked a bloodlust and injured him so they would send me instead. They usually sent the fighters who got injured enough off to the work camps. I hoped they would send him to Sam. I was never able to find more information about either of them."

He had made it through the recitation without breaking down, but as tears spilled down Colleen's cheeks and Katie curled into him, he felt the first sob rise in his throat.

"I'm so sorry…I should have done something, anything, to try and save them."

He felt Keith's hand on his shoulder and his love through the bond. Katie tightened her arms around him. Colleen's voice was rough as she spoke through her tears. "Honestly, Shiro, what could you have done differently? When you were able to do something to protect Matt, you did it. And you paid a huge price for it. We don't blame you."

She wiped her face. "We just have to keep pushing for a way to get out there and search for them. Shiro, your parents are in Osaka with your grandmother. She developed pneumonia about a month ago but she's recovering. Katie has their contact info."

Shiro nodded and got his voice working again. "Thank you."

"Katie, keep me informed. I'll pass it all on to Greg—he's the reporter who let me know what the Garrison was going to do. I think the McClains and Garretts are going to make a joint statement denying it if the Garrison does go through with their announcement."

"Will do, Mom."

Katie closed the connection and opened a new window. "Ready to talk to your folks?"

"I…" Shiro looked down at his arm, still exposed for all to see.

Keith's hand left his shoulder and ran through his hair. "It'll be all right. They'll just be glad to see you alive. Trust me."

 _Never a question about that._

Shiro drew a deep breath and nodded at Katie. "Okay, I'm ready."

* * *

Thank you as always for reading!


	10. Part 10

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize the character, it isn't mine. Just playing in Dreamworks' sandbox.

 **Note:** I'm on Twitter and Tumblr as "avidbeader" - come say hi!

I really want to get "Scattered" finished, but this happened instead.

* * *

Katie pulled up her messenger window and a browser. She opened a reference page and did a quick bit of math. "Okay, Japan is fourteen hours ahead of us, so you're looking at five-thirty in the evening their time."

Shiro nodded. "That'll work."

She entered the information from her mother and Shiro watched as an antique telephone icon appeared and started ringing. The screen shifted and his father's face appeared.

"Takashi?"

"Hey, Dad."

"Hoshiko! Hoshiko! It's Takashi!"

Shiro could hear a startled cry in the background, then running feet before his mother slid into view. "Oh my god, Takashi!" She put her hand to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears.

His father looked ready to join her. "Colleen said you'd made it back."

"Have you gotten in touch with Keith yet?" His mother asked.

Shiro looked up and smiled, reaching for Keith and pulling so he would sit next to him. Katie slid the laptop over slightly.

"He was the one to find me, Mom. He knew when I escaped."

A smile burst across her face and the tears spilled down her cheeks.

Ichiro zeroed in on Keith. "Where have you been?"

Keith's happy expression faltered. "I… staying hidden. I didn't want the Garrison to find me."

"We could have protected you."

"I…" Keith glanced at Shiro, who put his arm around him, sending encouragement along the bond. _Just tell them._

Keith took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I was so afraid of them finding me and breaking our bond, I didn't think."

Ichiro replied, "That's understandable. But you have to remember, Takashi comes with a family. We're your family."

Keith nodded.

Hoshiko leaned forward. "Can you come home? Your grandmother would love to see you."

"I'm not sure, Mom. There's something wrong with the Garrison – they wouldn't hear me out. And there are aliens coming, looking for a weapon that was hidden here. We need to find it before they do."

Ichiro frowned at that. "Not you. Let Terraforce handle it if you don't trust the Garrison."

"Dad, we don't know who we can trust. There's a lot of cooperation between the Garrison and Terraforce. Besides, bringing them in will only delay things. We have to move fast."

His father tried again. "Keith, please! Tell him!"

Keith's expression crumpled into apology. "I can't, sir. He's right. We need to find this weapon first and we're the only ones who can do it quickly." He gripped Shiro's hand and Shiro squeezed back reassuringly. "I'm sorry."

Hoshiko laid one hand on Ichiro's arm before he could argue more. "Takashi, please get in touch again as soon as possible. Let us know when you're safe."

Shiro felt tears welling up. "I promise."

She kissed her fingers and touched them to the screen. Shiro used his left hand to repeat the gesture. "We love you, darling."

"Love you too, Mom. Dad. We'll talk to you soon."

Katie reached over and closed the connection. "Okay, anyone else we should notify? Keith?"

Shiro shook his head and began, "Keith doesn't have—"

"Wait! Dr. Hooper!"

Katie's eyes lit up. "That was the name! Yes, that's a good idea."

Keith bit his lip. "I'm not sure we can find her. She was going up to Canada, Alberta, to get away from whoever had her project terminated."

Katie pulled the laptop over and cracked her knuckles. "First name?"

"Margaret."

She leaned over and began tapping keys.

* * *

Lance huddled next to Hunk as he put the finishing touches on the Voltron Geiger Counter. Hunk noticed the frequent glances Lance shot at Shiro and Keith as they sat with Katie and communicated with people.

"Dude, you need to chill. I know Shiro's your hero and all, but he needs the chance to talk to his family. You'll get your turn."

Lance glared at him. "I just don't get it. I don't get how _he_ has this connection with Shiro. Why him, of all people?"

"That's the thing about soul bonds. They just happen. My moms weren't looking to hook up with one another. Ma-lisa figured she'd get married after culinary school and Ma-nee was focused on learning everything to open her own restaurant. And then they reached for the same bottle of olive oil in class one day. It is what it is."

"But—"

"No buts, dude. You gotta get over it."

Lance grumbled, but stopped arguing for the moment.

* * *

After about five minutes of detective work, Katie pushed the laptop back to Keith and Shiro. "Okay, this connection is for her sister. Hopefully she'll have a way to get in touch."

Keith swallowed hard as the laptop worked to connect the call. The cross, sleepy face that appeared on the screen was similar enough to Dr. Hooper. He straightened. "Hi, I'm looking for Dr. Hooper? Margaret Hooper. I'm Keith Kogane."

The woman went from sleepy to alert at his name. "Oh, wow! You're alive! Molls has been worried sick about you."

"Is she okay?"

"Okay enough. I think she's—um, are you somewhere secure?"

Keith nodded. "Yeah. I just need her to know that I'm okay and that Shiro made it back."

Her mouth dropped open. "Wait, the Kerberos captain? He's back?"

Keith turned the screen so the webcam showed both of them and Shiro gave a small wave.

"Oh my god, oh my god, we have to let her know! Give me a minute!"

Keith and Shiro traded looks, then looked at Katie. Her face was scrunched up tightly in thought. "You said she was trying to get away from somebody?"

Keith replied, "Someone with a lot of influence killed the project, studying the distance effects of our bond. I think someone was looking to erase all the evidence available that Shiro and your family survived."

"Including trying to break the bond between you two." Katie's expression turned furious.

Shiro felt Keith tense up beside him and was suddenly immersed in Keith's memory of the assault: dragged away by masked assailants, strapped down, shouting at Iverson to stop until he was gagged, and his absolute helplessness as the second person approached with a syringe full of drugs. He put his arm around Keith and sent back his strongest reassurance: _It didn't happen. I'm still here._

Keith looked at him, his eyes fearful. _It was so close, though._

Shiro was racking his brain for anything to say that might help. Katie reached over and put one hand on Keith's arm, able to read their body language.

"It's going to be okay. You're together again. We're going to work it all out."

Keith drew a deep shuddering breath and nodded at them. But whatever he might have said was interrupted by the doctor's sister appearing on the screen again.

"Okay, I've called her. She's waiting to hear from you right now!"

* * *

Franke watched the security video for the twentieth time. As the medtechs and Iverson went down, he growled deep in his throat.

Across from him, Iverson squirmed. Franke paused the video and glared at him.

"How? How did you let a fucking _teenager_ take you down like that?"

"He came in like a tornado! We had no chance to react!"

"And the rest of the unit? No one thought to stay behind in case the explosions were a diversion?"

"We were dealing with a confirmed alien spacecraft! We had no way of knowing it was the only one!"

Franke slammed one hand down on the table. "There is not going to be any way to cover this up! McClain and Garret's families issued their statements within minutes of the first press release about their deaths. They have to have been in touch with their sons already."

"What about Gunderson?"

Franke's eyes narrowed. "Gunderson...is an interesting case."

"What do you mean?"

"The contact information for him no longer exists."

"What?"

"Gunderson is a false identity for someone. No telling who."

Iverson's eyes widened and he let out a slow breath as the puzzle pieces fit together. How had he missed it? "The daughter. Holt's daughter."

"That makes it worse. Colleen Holt is talking to reporters. And I just got word that Shirogane's parents have asked for help from the Japanese government. Our only shot is finding those kids and finding them fast!"

"All we can do is try to search the desert from the air when we have daylight! Kogane took them right off a cliff and straight into a no-man's-land!"

"Scramble the search teams. I want them out at first light."

* * *

Keith sat up as Dr. Hooper's face appeared on the screen. She brushed her dark-again hair out of her face and smiled. "Keith! It's so good to see you!"

He smiled back. "Good to see you, too."

"Mary said Shiro's back?"

Shiro leaned in. "Yes, I made it back."

Dr. Hooper's smile faded as she took in Shiro's appearance. "I see. What happened to you?"

Shiro retreated into self-deprecation and shrugged. "Got abducted by aliens. Ended up fighting as entertainment in an arena. Some traitor in their ranks helped me escape. Crash-landed back here."

Keith squeezed his hand and leaned into his shoulder as he sent comfort along the bond.

"And…how is your bond?"

"Still there," Shiro replied.

The doctor's eyes widened. "Do you…do you know how far away you ended up?"

Shiro shook his head. "Not exactly. The Galra have something called a hyperdrive that can travel faster than light. I never got a good look at the sky to try and orient myself while I was a prisoner. And the one who freed me programmed the ship I came back in. All I know is it was far outside our solar system – even in hyperdrive it took hours, maybe over a day to get back."

Hooper blew out a long breath, taking it in. "Then it's possible there's no measurable distance limit to the bond."

Keith spoke up. "Something did happen, though. When we were back together, physically, it was like the bond was too strong for us. Like we were going to merge into one identity and be stuck like that forever."

The doctor gasped at that. "Hold on, I need to be recording this!" She disappeared from the screen and they heard footsteps receding.

Katie looked up from her pocket tablet. "Update from Mom: the Garrison tried to announce our deaths, burying the news in the middle of the night. She's talking to multiple reporters now about releasing the video of the Kerberos landing. Lance and Hunk's families issued their statements before anyone could contact them first and _that's_ gotten the media's attention. Your parents are trying to bring in the Japanese government since Shiro's their citizen."

Shiro raised his eyebrows at that bit of news.

"And according to what I've just found on the high-security server at the Garrison, they're going to be searching for us by air starting at first light. When's sunrise?"

Keith thought for a moment. "Two, two-and-a-half hours from now."

Katie turned to the others. "Hunk, how's the Voltron detector?"

"Almost ready!"

Shiro looked around. "I think we need to be ready the minute we have enough light to see by."

"Keith? Shiro? I'm ready. Can you repeat what you were saying about the bond again?"

* * *

Hunk was on the porch of the cabin, turning in a slow circle and watching the needle on the repurposed Geiger counter. There was a clear indicator that the alien signature was coming from the southwest.

Lance was leaning against the railing, watching the bunker. Shiro and Keith had disappeared into it once more, saying they needed to talk but would be back shortly. Pidge had physically jumped in front of Lance when he moved in their direction, hoping to get a word in first, and he had come close to decking her for it.

Hunk sighed, made a note of the direction where the signal was strongest, and set the device down. He moved to Lance's side and nudged him.

"Seriously, Lance. Whatever is eating you so bad, you have to let it go."

"I just…I just wanna be able to talk to him! And… _fucking_ Keith is always there! Or Pidge is getting in the way!"

"Lance, if your parents were separated by a huge distance for a long time, wouldn't you give them time alone first?"

Lance looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. "We're family! Family sticks together!"

"And when people in your family want privacy?"

Lance shrugged. "I guess they tell us. Or go…somewhere else…"

Hunk nodded, seeing Lance finally make the connection. He knew from visits that Lance's family was almost constantly in one another's space. It was almost diametrically opposite to what he remembered of Shiro's personality at the Garrison—friendly if approached but not super-outgoing—and his initial reading of Keith was of an intensely private person.

"So, they went somewhere else for a bit. Let them have some time."

Lance glared through the window into the cabin where Pidge was typing away at her laptop. "So you're on _their_ side against me?"

Hunk face-palmed. Lance was his best friend and normally a fun and chill dude, but once in a while he got obsessed over things. This was apparently one of those things.

"No. There is no side here. I'm not sure why Pidge is going off the rails to protect them. Maybe it's because she knew Shiro before. Maybe she's one of those people who wants a soul bond really badly and overdoes it when she meets a pair in real life. My moms have had to put up with a few people like that over the years. But if you back off, she'll calm down and you will get your opportunity to talk to Shiro."

Lance ran his hands up and down his arms through his jacket, trying to warm himself against the cold night air. He didn't meet Hunk's gaze.

"Lance, I'm serious. Shake it the fuck off."

That got his attention. Hunk rarely swore. Lance looked at him for a moment and finally nodded.

"Okay, I'll try."

* * *

Leaning over her laptop, fingers flying, Katie orchestrated.

The Garrison had an army. Hell, the Garrison was technically part of the army, focusing on recruiting and training teenagers for space exploration.

They needed their own army.

Her mom. Shiro's parents. Hunk and Lance's parents. A growing mob of reporters. And now Dr. Hooper. They were the core group and Katie had made sure that they could all contact one another.

Now they needed the public.

Her laptop pinged a notification. Dr. Hooper had sent her the research presentation she had finished in the hopes of being able to publish it one day. She had made a hasty addendum outlining Shiro's return and how Keith had described the exponential solidification of their bond.

Katie attached it to the post and took one more look at what she had composed. Everything was there: the coverup of Kerberos, Shiro's escape and return, aliens searching for the Voltron, the attempts to hide the existence of aliens, anything relevant that Shiro had mentioned about these Galra.

Taking a deep breath, she hit "send".

* * *

Once back in the bunker, Keith immediately moved in, ready to pick up where they had left off. Shiro took him by the shoulders and kept space between them.

"Shiro, what?"

"I said we had to talk."

"Talk about what?"

"I need to know exactly what happened with you. I've got the impressions, the emotions. I could see through your eyes on the way back. But I don't understand why. What happened? How could you pull things together so fast in the time it took me to get back here?"

Keith swallowed hard. "I… I knew something was coming tonight. I didn't know it would be you, not until that person helped you escape. I was preparing to intercept whoever arrived and try to hitch a ride with them off-planet."

Shiro's hands fell away from Keith as his mouth dropped open. Keith's insides twisted, unable to feel anything from his soulmate other than shock and growing disapproval. He flinched as Shiro's expression grew stormy. But just as Shiro drew breath to speak, a low, warning growl thundered through both of them.

 ** _I did not help you for this._**

Shiro looked around. "What _is_ that?"

"That's…" Keith groped for a better way to say it, but nothing came. "That's my guardian angel."

"Your what?"

"It's like the bond, but different. More lopsided. It's helped me, almost from the night I arrived here. Boosted me, helped me help you. It may have even saved my life when you lost… when they took your hand."

Shiro's anger had faded and now he was lost in thought. "That's what you were saying to Dr. Hooper. About something outside us bringing the bond back under our control."

Keith nodded.

"But…you said you knew something was coming. How did you know?"

Keith held out his hand. "You should see this."

* * *

Keith would have preferred showing the corkboard just to Shiro, but there was no polite way to tell the others to stay out of the main room. He pulled the sheet down and began trying to explain.

It got easier sooner than he expected. Keith had barely begun tracing out the direction of this strange presence when Hunk nodded vigorously. "Yes! That's the direction the Voltron Geiger counter is showing!"

Pidge was typing, adding new information to the stream as Keith gave it.

"The cave markings all had two things in common, predicting the arrival of something tonight and a mysterious blue lion—" Keith broke off and looked at Shiro.

He had made the connection as well. "A blue lion! That's what we have to find!"

"Is that what the Voltron thing is? A blue lion?" Lance asked. He frowned at a feeling of amusement coming from somewhere. But everyone else in the room looked as serious as he did.

Shiro straightened his shoulders. "I don't think we can afford to wait for daylight. Keith, can you get us to these caves now?"

He nodded and pointed to a box under the makeshift coffee table. "Flashlights are in there. Everyone grab one."

* * *

Thank you as always for reading! Comments are very welcome.


	11. Part 11

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize the characters, not mine. Playing in Dreamworks' sandbox.

Bits of dialogue from the show have been borrowed. Credit those lines to the Voltron team.

I am on Tumblr and Twitter under "avidbeader". Come say hi!

* * *

As they took a few minutes to organize, Hunk seized the opportunity of helping Pidge pack her equipment to ask the question.

"So, can I ask why you're being such a dragon over Shiro and Keith?"

She looked up at him with a frown. "Excuse me?"

Hunk waved toward Lance, who was double-checking that all the flashlights they wanted were working. "You almost body-checked Lance the last time he tried to talk to Shiro. I think it would be okay for them to have a conversation with someone besides each other."

She drew breath in and Hunk expected her to bite his head off with a blue streak of profanity and big words. But she paused, considering.

"Um…okay. Maybe I have been overreacting. It's just…that night in the faculty building, when they kidnapped Keith to try and break the bond. I've never heard anyone scream in that much terror before, not even in a movie. I had nightmares about it after, that my diversion didn't work or I was too late. And at the time I didn't even know what I was saving him from. Now I know. And I… I just want to make sure Keith never has to feel that way again."

Hunk blinked. He had not expected this as her reason, but it made a lot of sense. "Wow. I had no idea. But, we're kind of a team now. We shouldn't keep the two of them set apart if we're going to work together and find this Voltron thing."

She nodded. "That's fair. Guess I should apologize to Lance."

"When you get the chance, yeah. We should probably save the planet first." Hunk looked around. "That everything?"

Pidge zipped up her backpack. "That's all my stuff. Is the Voltron Geiger counter ready?"

"Yeah, I just need someone to carry the receiver."

"No problem, I got room."

* * *

Outside, Shiro was holding a flashlight for Keith as he double-checked that the hoverbike was charged and ready, with a first-aid kit, a stash of water, and energy bars in the hold.

Shiro looked it over, admiring how the finish shone in the moonlight. "Nice choice."

Keith nodded as he closed and locked the hatch for the battery.

"How did you manage with five of us on it? Must have handled like an elephant in galoshes."

Keith shrugged. "Hunk, the big guy, was sitting up on the tail. Getting him to shift to a side helped a lot."

Lance approached them with an armful of flashlights. "Did he tell you about driving over the cliff with all of us on board?"

Shiro raised his eyebrows at that. Keith shrugged again. "I knew what I was doing. I practiced it after…" He trailed off, seeing Shiro put two and two together. As Shiro looked down at his metal hand, Keith reached over and grabbed it. "Not your fault. I'll say it a thousand times if I have to. Not your fault."

Lance scowled and cleared his throat. "Where do you want these?"

Keith opened the hold under the seat. "Here, with the rest of the supplies. Thanks."

Lance put them in, glancing at Shiro as he did.

"So, are we ready?" Shiro switched off his flashlight to add to the hold, closed it, and clapped Lance on the shoulder.

"Um…if Hunk's got everything of his ready?"

"Keith, is there anything else you need?"

Keith looked down. "I've got everything but I should lock up behind them. Be right back." He strode toward the cabin.

Lance shifted his feet and looked around. Shiro smiled a little and held out his hand.

"Lance, right?"

Lance brightened and Shiro automatically reached out with his right hand. He noticed the briefest of hesitations, but Lance shook with him.

"It's an honor to meet you. I've been following your career since I was like twelve!"

Shiro chuckled at that. "I appreciate it."

"I really didn't want to believe it when they reported that Kerberos was lost. I'm glad you got away and made it back."

Shiro's smile faded. "Yeah."

"I mean, I know 'pilot error' is usually what they say when a mission goes wrong and they're not sure what happened. Gotta trigger the life insurance policies for the families and all. But normally you get some information about what they think could have gone wrong. This time…nothing. Nada. No probes that we knew of. All they did was create a rescue mission for the sims. It kind of bothered people. And then Pidge started running his mouth…um, her mouth every time it came up, keeping the rumors alive. It just felt…off."

Shiro was staring at the ground but looked up when Lance trailed off. "Thanks for telling me."

"Sure thing!" Lance was about to ask about flying across the solar system, but the sound of a door closing echoed behind him and footsteps approached.

"Where do you want us, Keith?" Pidge asked.

Keith looked at the five of them. "Well, since we're not being chased by half the Garrison this time… Hunk, you're behind me. Katie, behind him. Shiro and Lance, on either side of them on a nacelle. That'll be kind of balanced without weighing down the tail."

Katie snickered. "I think he's saying you need to hit the weight room, Lance."

Shiro noticed Lance's scowl and Hunk's facepalm. Lance began, "Look here, you little—"

 _Okay, this needs to stop now._

"Knock it off, both of you. We have a mission to complete."

* * *

Keith drove them toward the caves, then paused at the top of a rise. "Hunk, see if you can get a reading from here. The caves almost surround us at this point."

Katie slipped her backpack off her shoulders and dug out the Voltron Geiger counter and its receiver. They all watched as Hunk switched it on and began swinging it around.

"Down there."

"Okay, hold on!" Keith revved the engine and steered the hoverbike over the drop. The others yelled, holding on for dear life.

Shiro threw an arm around Katie to keep the both of them in place and sent his displeasure along the bond. After a successful and remarkably smooth recovery from the maneuver, Keith looked back and stuck his tongue out at Shiro. _I know what I'm doing. Trust me._

As the ride evened out, Hunk began looking at the device and calling directions into Keith's ear. "Left thirty degrees! Back five degrees! Good! Now right another five degrees!"

They zigzagged across the valley toward a cluster of caves and Keith halted the hoverbike. "Can you tell which one?"

Hunk shifted and Katie got off first, grabbing the receiver from him.

"Give us a few minutes."

Lance hopped off his perch. "We can split up, everyone check a different cave."

"No!" Shiro's voice was sharp. "No splitting up. We all stay within eyesight."

Keith recognized a large cave that he had visited frequently, for no good reason he could think of. "I'm putting the bike inside this cave." The others got off the bike.

"Good call." Shiro nodded at him, watching Hunk carefully step into the mouth of the cave on the far right and study the readings, Katie trailing after him.

Keith pulled the hoverbike in about twenty feet from the entrance, then killed the engine, dismounted, and opened the hold. He gathered the flashlights and switched one on. Shiro was at the entrance, keeping an eye on everyone.

Lance had followed him in and paused, looking at the design on the cave wall illuminated by the beam. "Whoa."

Keith glanced at him and swept the flashlight around. "Yeah. These markings are everywhere"

The others appeared at the mouth of the cave. Hunk called out, "This one! Definitely getting the strongest readings in here!"

As Keith handed out the rest of the flashlights, Lance stepped forward, looking at one lion carving in the wall. He reached out and ran a hand across it, blowing dust away. "Hi, Simba."

The outline lit up in an intense, bright blue light and Lance jumped back with a yell.

Keith whirled around. The others gaped as more and more carvings lit up around them in a glowing web of images.

As Keith watched, the threads of light zipped under Lance's feet and the stone began to crumble. He dove forward, trying to grab at his arm or jacket as Lance began falling through the cave floor. He felt Shiro's sudden dread through the bond and a hand scrabbled at his leg.

Then the rest of the floor disintegrated and they were all falling.

* * *

Lance could not hold in his shriek as they were suddenly being swept down a waterfall, but he wasn't the only one. Then he was falling through the air before landing in a shallow pool of water. He was buffeted by splashes as Keith and Shiro fell to either side of him, then a huge wave swept over the three of them as Hunk and Pidge crashed down.

Lance pushed himself to his knees, feeling around his head for potential sore spots, then looked up.

And gaped at what had to be the blue lion.

* * *

Shiro immediately reached for Keith, sending his concern. _You OK?_

Keith was already on his feet and grabbed Shiro's hand to pull him up, sending his reassurance back. _Yeah, you?_

Shiro nodded in response and Keith let him go, taking off for the giant blue lion sitting inside some kind of grid-patterned glowing bubble. A sense of certainty was flowing into him through the bond. Whatever it was that Keith had been feeling, that they had both felt in the last few hours, this seemed to be the source.

Keith had reached the edge of the bubble and ran his hands along it before Shiro could react. When had Keith gotten so impulsive? He let a flare of worry and anger run through the bond. _What if that force field was set to harm instead of just block?_

He could feel Keith's realization and slightly sheepish acknowledgement come back to him. _Sorry. Didn't think our guardian angel would do that._ Aloud, Keith murmured, "I wonder how we get through this."

Lance came up to stand beside him. "Maybe you just have to knock."

He followed up his words with action and tapped at the force field. Shiro inhaled sharply as energy shot out from the grid and enveloped Lance's hand. Lance shrieked and stumbled back, then they all backed up as the force field collapsed and the blue lion lifted its head and let out an enormous roar.

And then Shiro was caught up in a vision, equally as strong as the force that had saved him and Keith mere hours before.

* * *

Lance knew it was stupid to just waltz up and knock on the bubble surrounding the blue lion. Okay, not colossally stupid—Mullet-Head had just put his hands on it like a good little red-shirt and shown that there were no lethal effects. But still, it was lame of him and if had been anyone else but Keith standing next to him he probably would have waited while they all tried to figure out the situation.

But he knocked and felt a ripple of amusement coming from somewhere. Then he yelled—yes, he yelled, he most certainly did _not_ squeal like a little girl—as blue light wrapped around his hand and something tingled up his arm and into his chest. And whatever it was settled there and Lance had a mental picture of his older sister propping her chin on her hands and giving him the most mischief-filled grin ever.

The force field dropped and the Lion roared, sending a new image into his head…five lion ships soaring into an endless blue sky until they could not be separated by the human eye…and then a massive robot descended to land with an earth-shaking thud.

The name **_Voltron_** thundered through his mind as the lion's roar echoed in the cave and for the briefest instant Lance could _feel_ the others, also caught up in the vision. Shiro and Keith were on the defensive and wary, surprised by something. Hunk and Pidge were terrified and close to panicking. That image of his sister was still there, shaking her head over them being frightened.

The lion moved, lowering its head and opening the massive jaws to reveal a ramp. **_Come on, already_** _,_ his mind-sister waved at him.

Lance let out a cackle and darted up the ramp.

* * *

After the display of fear they had shown (Hunk on his knees and practically cowering) Keith was surprised to see him and Katie follow Lance into the…lion? Ship? He could still feel his guardian angel, but the strength was diminishing and it was tinged with regret. To add to the confusion, he was pretty certain he was getting hit with new sensations that were just a little like his bond with Shiro. They were faint, but there: curiosity, fright, trepidation.

 _What's going on? I don't understand._

The purring swelled once more and this time Keith had another visual of the five ships. A nudge to look at the others more closely. **_I am not the one destined for you._**

Keith looked at Shiro, who seemed to be trying to remember something. "Do we go in?"

"We'd better. Otherwise one of them is going to find a proton cannon or something and fire it."

Keith chuckled as they went up the ramp. "Are proton cannons even a thing?" He held out a hand to Shiro as he climbed up, trying to figure out where the others had gone.

Shiro took his hand, the bond pulsing steadily at the contact, and pointed with his other hand. "I'm going to say maybe."

Keith looked over his shoulder and his eyes widened. The space where the lion's throat would be going down into the body was filled with a glowing lens, wider than Shiro was tall, that bathed the space in blue light. The metal rim that encircled it shone.

It certainly _looked_ like it could be a proton cannon, if one assumed that such things existed.

Shiro tugged at his hand. "Here, I think this goes up into the ship."

They found themselves in a cockpit, large enough for all of them to stand around the single chair. Lance was poking at the glowing blue holo-panels and a viewscreen rose into place, showing them the dim cavern. Lance had a huge grin on his face and reached for the steering poles.

"Okay, let's see what these do!"

Keith started forward, his free hand out. "Wai—"

And he felt Shiro throw his arms around him, trying to protect them both as the lion took off, sending them to the back of the cockpit.

* * *

 _Ohgodohgodohgoddon'tthrowupohgod…_

Hunk held onto the side of the pilot's seat and Lance's arm with all his might. His thrill of victory at discovering the source of the alien energy had collapsed into fear when the cat-ship sat up and roared on its own. Not even the notion of it joining up with four other cat-ships into a giant robot could overcome the fact that _it moved on its own._

Lance was twisting the controls in glee, completely free of any constraints in a simulator, and vaulted the ship into the air. He took off for the north and Hunk realized he was intent on buzzing the Garrison compound.

"Dude, don't! We're in enough trouble as it is!"

"Oh, come on! Those jerks deserve it for treating Shiro like that!"

"Hunk's right! We don't need to give them any more reasons to try and shoot us down!" Keith snarled from behind and Hunk felt a hand on his shoulder as Keith pulled himself up behind the pilot's chair.

When Lance showed no sign of changing course, Shiro spoke up. "Lance, if you can control this thing, break off now!"

Lance threw one frustrated glance back, but steered to the east instead.

Then Hunk felt the faintest tug of…something. They needed to go and do something. They had to stop something. But what?

Without warning, the ship rose into the clouds.

* * *

Katie had long since given up on trying to bite back her cries. There was no point holding in her yells to score feminism points when Lance had screamed shrilly the first time the lion-ship reacted to him and Hunk was yelling at every shift in position.

Which at least meant he wasn't on the verge of puking. Small mercies and all that. The cockpit began shaking and she seized fistfuls of Lance's jacket.

"Where are you going?" Keith shouted as the ship rattled through the upper atmosphere.

"There's an alien ship coming! I think we're supposed to stop it!" Lance tugged at the steering poles and Katie could see how white his knuckles were with the effort.

"How do you know that?" Shiro demanded, his voice authoritative.

"The lion says so!"

"What did it say, _exactly?"_

"It's not like words! It's like it's feeding pictures into my brain!"

She noticed Shiro and Keith lock eyes, their expressions shifting minutely as they communicated. Then Lance veered sharply and she nearly landed in his lap while the others clutched any handhold they could find on the back and arms of the pilot's chair.

"Lance, for god's sake!" She shoved herself upright, surprised that he hadn't flinched when her hand landed very near his crotch. But he was staring out the viewscreen. She turned to look.

A very large, dark ship with a pointed and menacing outline was facing them.

Dimly she heard Shiro's anguished whisper. ""It's them. They found me."

* * *

Lance's heart was in his throat. What the hell was he supposed to do? They were one small (but awesome) ship against a much larger one. Who was he kidding? He was the reject that got lucky, with only enough talent to be trusted to transport basic cargo, not people. And don't even think about defending those same people…

Something hit him, like a slap to the face. Except it had happened inside his head.

It was followed by a feeling of urgency and a flood of images for which way to maneuver the poles, squeezing a button under his fingers.

He obeyed, and a bright blue beam of energy erupted from the lion's mouth, striking the side of the enemy ship and leaving a line of explosions in its wake. The ship responded with its own laser fire and he dodged, following the lion's lead to evade, and then dove for the hull. He dragged the lion's claws down the opposite side and backed away as more explosions blew.

At the urge to retreat, they took off away from Terra. The enemy ship followed them, damaged sides glowing and fire still burning. He got a pleased sensation, along with a bit of pride.

"Yeah, it's following us! Let's get it away from our planet!"

"Where are we?" Keith asked over his shoulder.

Shiro's answer was tinged with awe. "The edge of the solar system! Look, there's Kerberos."

"It takes us months to get anything out here! And we got here in like five seconds!" Pidge sputtered in his ear.

The spacescape before them shattered as a large circular field materialized in front of them, a swirling vortex of black and purple inside. Lance slowed the ship and that feeling inside his head almost growled at him, then retreated.

"What is that?" Hunk looked over the dashboard from his hunched position.

"Uh, this may seem crazy, but I think the lion wants us to go through there."

Pidge looked at him, her eyes wide. "Where does it go?"

Lance swallowed hard, feeling unexpectedly bereft without that guiding presence. "I…I don't know. Shiro, you're the senior officer here. What should we do?"

* * *

Keith watched Shiro as he weighed the options. There was no telling what was on the other side of that portal, if it was even a portal and not some death trap. There was still an enemy ship behind them, full of aliens who had kidnapped the Kerberos team and put his soulmate through a year of hell.

Keith put every ounce of conviction into the bond. _They're not getting you again. They're NEVER getting you again!_

Shiro's eyes met his. His uncertainty hinged on one question: whether to trust the lion or not.

That presence had guided him and guarded him during his isolation in the desert. It was time to repay.

 _I trust it._

Shiro pressed his lips together in a thin line, but nodded his agreement.

"Whatever is happening, the lion knows more than we do. I say we trust it, but we're a team now. We should decide together."

Keith glanced at the others, who were also looking around the group. First Katie, then Hunk laid hands on Lance's shoulders. He took a deep breath…and cracked a joke. Of course.

"All right. Guess we're all ditching class tomorrow!"

He steered the blue lion into the vortex.

* * *

Notes: Thank you as always for reading, kudos, and comments!


	12. Part 12

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize the character, it isn't mine. Just playing in Dreamworks' sandbox.

 **Note:** I'm on Twitter and Tumblr as avidbeader. Come say hi!

* * *

Colleen sat and scrolled on her tablet, watching as the hits to Katie's post kept climbing. It would crack two million views soon and there were over a hundred thousand comments on it. Greg had commandeered every intern at his station to comb through them, separating the trolls from what was useful, and track as the post was shared across social media and picked up by more news outlets.

Some of the comments included people with access to satellite information that showed the presence of both the lion-shaped craft and a massive spaceship above North America, trading fire before the former led the latter away. There was data from probes near Mars and Titan showing both ships going to the outer edges of the solar system at astonishing speeds. The last probe, one launched by the Kerberos team before their arrival on the moon, registered a brief glimpse of both ships, the appearance of an unidentified anomaly, and then the abrupt disappearance of the lion ship and the anomaly, closely followed by the large ship vanishing as well.

It was taking every ounce of willpower that Colleen had not to keep messaging Katie. She would answer when she could answer.

But she and the others had left to go find this Voltron, this blue lion. What if she had been on that ship when it disappeared?

Greg was working with a producer, setting up for a live broadcast that would include Doctor Hooper and the McClains. They were going to link in with the Shiroganes and the Garretts. The plan was to essentially recap the information, with an emphasis that they had all actually communicated with their children and that the Garrison was not to be trusted.

They intended to drive home the fact that the Garrison had been behind the attempt to break Shiro and Keith's bond. The existence of the soul bond was the one thing that all Terran societies prioritized, the one thing considered untouchable. It had taken millennia for those beliefs to spread across the globe, but they had been in place for over two hundred years now.

No one could ask for a bond to be broken without exceedingly compelling reasons, and rejection of the request was more often the result outside of extraordinary age gaps. The testimony of them seizing Keith and trying to break the bond against his will had the potential to sway public opinion of the Garrison in a very negative direction.

Ichiro Shirogane had already shared what he planned to say about the experience of losing one's soulmate and reading it had brought Colleen to tears. It cut like a knife to think about Keith being taken, restrained, and having that same hollowness of self forced on him. Thinking of Shiro hurt the same way, but for him there were the added weights of having that feeling descend upon him without warning, left abandoned on some distant world with no hope of escape, not knowing if Keith was alive. It was painful enough not knowing what had happened to Sam or Matt. To have had that connection and lose it… That was twisting the knife deeper.

 _Please, let them be together at least._ She didn't know if that prayer was for her husband and son or for Shiro and Keith.

The sound of a door opening pulled her out of her thoughts. Colleen swiped at her eyes with one sleeve and stood as the McClains entered, followed by a dark-haired woman that must be Dr. Hooper.

The McClains had suitcases with wheels, rolling them easily. Dr. Hooper appeared to have shoved things haphazardly into a large duffel bag and was slumped between it and the weight of a tech bag on the other shoulder. Greg stepped forward, reaching for the duffel.

"Here, let me help—"

"Oh, I've got it—"

His hand closed over hers and they both froze. The bag slipped from their hands and the tech satchel slid from her shoulder to the floor. The McClains turned at the sudden silence and both leaped forward to steady them.

Colleen's eyes widened as she realized what she was witnessing. She moved to help Mrs. McClain lower the doctor to the floor as her legs gave out. The producer ran over to help, letting out a disbelieving laugh.

"Greg, you lucky bastard! Here, man. Deep breaths." He took their joined hands and repositioned them so the two could grasp the other more securely. "Just hang onto her. It'll clear up in a few minutes."

Greg shook his head and reached with his other hand. "Um…hello. I'm Greg. Greg Radcliff."

The doctor grasped the second hand and pulled herself to sitting. "Molly…sorry, Margaret Hooper." She shut her eyes and inhaled sharply. "Dear lord…and Keith was feeling this even with Shiro in another solar system?"

The producer clapped Greg on the shoulder. "Okay, we are on a schedule. Let's get you two sitting together and I'll finish the setup."

Colleen gave Dr. Hooper a squeeze as she and Mrs. McClain lifted her to her feet. One tiny good thing, at least, had come from all of this.

* * *

Katie darted forward as the girl from the weird capsule grabbed Lance by the ear and arm and dropped him to his knees, hurling questions at them. Shiro caught her and hauled her back, trying to prevent the situation from escalating. "We don't know what you mean. Perhaps if you tell us your name, we can help?"

She released Lance, who got to his feet with a sulky expression and backed away from her. Katie placed herself next to him. Yes, Lance was dense and extremely annoying, but that didn't mean this girl with the white hair and pointy ears could just manhandle him.

The girl looked them over before speaking. "I am Princess Allura of Planet Altea. Now explain how you hold the Blue Lion! Its paladin was charged with taking it to a far location and guarding it."

"Um, we found the lion," Katie answered. "No guard of any kind. Or to be more specific, Keith found it." She jerked a thumb at him. "The lion was kind of calling to him for months and months. And then Hunk built a machine that would trace where the weird energy was and we found the lion."

The princess stared at her for a moment, then at Keith. "It…called you? You flew it here?"

"No, that was Lance. Doing the worst job of flying I have ever seen."

"Hey, I got us away from that warship!"

"No, the wormhole got us away from that warship!"

"Wait!" The princess held up her hands. She turned to Keith. "You could sense the Blue Lion's whereabouts. But you didn't fly it?" Keith nodded.

Whatever she was about to say was lost when the second capsule opened and a man with a very large mustache emerged in attack mode.

* * *

"Zarkon…" Allura growled out the name, wishing she could crush his very essence between her teeth. But he was gone, along with anyone else who might have supported the destruction of Altea.

Two of them visibly reacted at the name, the tallest one and the one they claimed had sensed the Blue Lion. The tall one echoed her in disbelief. "Zarkon?"

"Yes, why?"

He had paled and his breathing had picked up. The other young man moved closer and put a hand to his shoulder. "Easy, Shiro. It's over." He turned to look at Allura, keeping himself between them. "Shiro was a prisoner of Zarkon, of his kingdom, for close to a year."

"That's impossible! How could he still be alive after ten thousand years?"

He gave one sharp, sardonic laugh. "You're still alive, aren't you? Maybe he spent a few millennia sleeping in a capsule, too. Or maybe the name got passed down through generations of rulers. Anyway, I think we're all on the same side here. We agree that _not_ getting captured by anyone associated with Zarkon is a priority, right?"

Allura stared at him a moment. While her father had never been as much of a stickler as Zarkon had been when it came to maintaining separation of classes, she had still grown up accustomed to a certain amount of deference. Whoever these people were, they obviously weren't used to interacting with a royal personage. It was up to her to show patience.

She cleared her throat, realizing she had been silent too long. "Yes...Keith, was it? Yes, we are all on the same side against Zarkon and the Galra."

 _ **Good girl. Trust them.**_

It took every bit of her training not to react to the voice in her head. It seemed to be coming from the one who had caught her, falling out of the cryo-pod, but his mouth was still set in a scowl. As she watched, a gentle blue aura appeared and swirled around him.

An aura that she had last seen with Blaytz, the Blue Paladin.

 _ **Look at them.**_

She looked, considering.

The smallest one showed green, running in lively pulses like a circuit board.

 _ **Pidge.**_

The large one with the headband shone yellow, sifting like sand in an hourglass.

 _ **Hunk.**_

The tall one glowed a pale purple, solid and steadfast.

 _ **Shiro.**_

Keith's aura danced like flame, red and flickering. She also noticed something else odd, how his natural quintessence seemed to vibrate exactly in time with Shiro's. But it probably only looked so because the two of them were standing so close.

 _ **It is time to return.**_

Allura agreed with the voice, but before she could start to explain, a proximity alarm blared and shattered any hope of careful planning.

* * *

Keith leaned against the wall, out of the way, as the two Alteans moved from console to console: keeping tabs on the wormhole passages, watching that enemy ship approach much faster than expected, and trying to track the Red Lion. He closed his eyes and watched through Shiro's view as he followed Katie through a beautiful tropical forest. He chuckled to himself as the sloth-like creature startled them, as Katie worked herself into a tizzy before Shiro reminded her of her father's words.

He smiled as Shiro watched her climb the pyramid that housed the Green Lion, sending fondness over memories of similar gentle but effective pep talks he had given to Keith before Kerberos. Shiro sent back his own pleasure of watching Keith absorb and apply the messages, and their bond hummed.

"Coran! Coran, help me!"

Keith jolted back into awareness to find the princess standing in front of him with a look of horror on her face. "Ah, what's the matter?"

She reached for him, seizing his wrist and pulling him toward the doorway. He was surprised at her strength, but was able to jerk his arm free. "Tell me what's going on."

"Your quintessence! It's overloaded! We need to siphon it off before it damages you!" She made to grab his arm again and he backed away from her.

She huffed. "It's for your own good!"

 _It's for your own good._

He could feel the straps holding him down, the tourniquet tightening on his arm...

 _It's for the best._

"Don't! Don't touch me!"

"Please! We need to get you into a cryo-pod!"

He was already teetering on the edge of a flashback; her words melding into Iverson's voice, trying to convince him to cooperate as they severed the bond. The thought of being locked away in one of those standing coffins, cut off from everything—from Shiro—sent him into panic. When the man moved to help the girl corner him, he charged between them, diving under their hands into a controlled tumble before regaining his feet, and raced out of the control room. He heard the princess shout, "Go after him!" as he turned a corner.

Shiro was reaching out to him frantically, trying to understand what was happening, but Keith's flight instincts had taken over. He ran down hallways, turning at random, trying to find a hiding place or an escape…

The sheltering presence called and he responded without thinking. The Blue Lion. She would protect him, wouldn't she? She had helped before.

Keith turned again, homing in on the presence in his mind that wasn't Shiro.

* * *

Shiro was headed back to the pod while Katie soared in the Green Lion, almost frolicking as she learned the controls. He was grinning from ear to ear, filled with a delight that he didn't think was coming from the soul bond. Suddenly terror flooded him and he stumbled to one knee.

 _Keith! What's wrong?_

All he could feel in return was blind panic.

 _Keith!_

He got to his feet and ran for the pod, throwing himself in and activating the ignition sequence. As the pod rose into the air, he pulled up the comm screen. "What's going on? Is the castle under attack?"

Princess Allura's face appeared on the screen. "No, it's Keith!"

"What happened? He's terrified about something, running from an enemy! Are you sure no one else has gotten into the castle?"

She paused at that. "How…?" Then she gave one sharp shake of her head. "No, there's definitely no one else in the castle. But Keith's quintessence spiked to a dangerous level! We've got to do something to drain it—"

"Quintessence?" Shiro remembered that word being tossed around by the druids.

There was a burst of static, then Katie's face popped up on a second screen. "Found it! Communications are online!"

"Princess, what is quintessence?" Shiro repeated.

"All living things carry a life force. It can fluctuate with the being's state of health and magic makes it possible to transfer it and use it in healing."

 _Or to torture…_ An image of glowing purple being fed into his newly-implanted mechanical arm, burning into his nerves, leapt into his mind.

"Without warning, Keith's quintessence level rose to a dangerous degree, almost double what it should be for an Altean—"

"Um, princess?" Katie interrupted.

"What? We have to help him!"

"Not arguing that if it's really necessary, but…not Altean?" She adjusted her glasses.

"What?"

"Not Altean," Katie repeated. "We're Terran. Different physiology. Was he showing any _damage_ from what you saw?"

"N-no… I don't think so?"

"Then let us get back to the castle first. You can look us over for this quint-stuff and you'll have a better idea of whether Keith's actually in danger or not."

Allura nodded. "You're right. I can't believe I forgot you all were a different species. Coran! Coran, break off! Stop chasing him!"

Shiro's worry swerved into anger. "So he _was_ being chased! It's lucky for you I can let him know he's safe! We're on our way back!" Shiro cut his comm screen before he could say anything else out of fury and guided the pod toward the open wormhole.

He turned his focus toward Keith, trying to send reassurance. _It was a misunderstanding. You're safe. I'm on my way back. You can stop running._

* * *

Keith turned another corner and found himself at a dead end. He started to double back, but heard footsteps in the distance. He ducked behind the lighted pilaster closest to the dead end and pulled his knife from its sheath.

There was rumbling coming from somewhere on the other side of the wall.

 _Wait, why did I think I sensed the Blue Lion? Lance and Hunk took it._

He put his hand to the wall and whispered, "Who are you?"

The rumble increased. _**I am the center, the heart and the mind. And you are quite an interesting creature, to be able to hold two quintessences. Able to connect with more than one of us before the choosing. I see why my sister took an interest in you.**_

"You're the Black Lion?"

The assent was overlaid with Shiro's presence, assuring Keith that he was safe. Keith wasn't quite ready to believe that and stayed where he was.

 _ **Why are you afraid?**_

"The princess, she said she wanted to drain our bond. I can't lose my connection with Shiro, it would kill me to lose it."

 _ **I see now. My sister tried to explain, but it is a new thing. We have never seen a species before that can weave two quintessences together. Is this something all…Terrans…have?**_

"We think so. Not everyone meets their soulmate, but those who do are joined forever, able to feel what the other feels."

 _ **Fascinating. It sounds similar to our bonds with our paladins.**_

Keith smiled a little at that. "The Blue Lion…she helped me back on Terra."

 _ **And yet, she did not choose you. She thought you would be a better match for our sister of Fire.**_

A mental image of another ship rose up, smaller than the Blue Lion but sleek and agile. Keith felt a deep and sudden desire to fly her, to help her dance among the stars.

 _ **You will need to persuade her. She has suffered.**_

Well, Keith knew suffering, didn't he? A year separated from Shiro, having to witness his pain without being able to do much about it was pretty bad.

 _ **Imagine if he had died at the hands of someone who had once been a trusted friend.**_

That stopped Keith cold. Shiro dying was unthinkable. But he also caught the edges of something in the Black Lion's thoughts. Whoever the friend was, he had been more than trusted. He had been…

"There you are!"

Keith whirled, his knife out, and the one named Coran stepped back immediately, his hands up and his mustache twitching. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We really did think you were in danger. We forgot you're not Altean."

"No trying to drain anything? No capsule?"

"Cryo-pod," Coran corrected him automatically. "And no. The princess would like to apologize as well."

Keith lowered his knife and put it away. Coran held out a hand, gesturing back to the entrance. Keith glanced up, wishing he could see through the wall.

The presence rumbled once more and Keith felt a mental push. _**Go on.**_

Lost in his own thoughts, Keith missed the odd look Coran gave him.

* * *

It had taken vargas, possibly quintants, but Haggar had found the faintest traces of Champion. His aura was incredibly distant at first. Then an unexpected rush of energy nearly threw her out of her meditative state. As she re-centered herself, she discovered that Champion was suddenly within Galra space, much closer and stronger…

...even stronger than when he had escaped.

 _How is this possible? Who is this alien?_

She continued to follow, gradually getting a better sense of his location. But just as she was about to break off and summon her druids to help map the physical coordinates, a new presence threw her fully out of her trance. Haggar picked herself up from the floor, her mind reeling at what she had stumbled across.

 _Alteans! Champion has found Alteans!_

Now she did summon her druids, directing them to support her as she fought for enough calm to reestablish her spells.

As she verified that the Alteans and Champion's locations were the same, she got a third surprise. The Blue Lion was active. Champion had somehow awakened one of the lions.

She must notify Zarkon of this. The joining of such forces would only spell trouble for the Empire.

But before she could emerge from the spells, Champion's presence changed. It seemed to stretch thin, one part remaining in the Alteans' location and the other taking off...through a wormhole. Of course. If Alteans had resurfaced after millennia, they would be using their teludavs for transportation.

 _But how can Champion be in two places at-_

And then she remembered. The second quintessence. Whoever Champion's anchor was, they were here now.

Within reach.

* * *

So, I have become a sponsor for Cryopcds/goodtohaveyouback on Tumblr, who does the amazing animation effects with Shiro and Keith that tell little stories. One of my perks is being able to make requests, and I requested her take on the point where Shiro and Keith first touch and wake their bond. This is the result: goodtohaveyouback dot tumblr dot com / post/166978715456/quintessence-is-the-source-of-life-for-all-things (add the h and t and t and p stuff to the front and remove the spaces and fix the "dot"s for the full URL...stupid fan fiction dot net for not letting us link things). Go shower her with love and attention!


	13. Part 13

**Disclaimer:** If you recognize the character it isn't mine. Just playing in Dreamworks' sandbox. Credit for lines of dialogue from the show goes to the writers.

 **Note:** I'm on Twitter and Tumblr as avidbeader. Come say hi!

* * *

As she guided the Green Lion toward the wormhole, it felt like every nerve in Katie's body was singing. Her heart was fluttering in excitement, her skin tingling, her stomach quivering with the trembles that came with hitting upon a really brilliant idea and anticipating pulling it off.

Her mind was full of images, of the times when a teacher or family member had listened and encouraged her. There was a constant buzz of _**goodnewfriendcleverquickjoy**_ until the images began to coalesce and settle...into Matt.

A wave of sorrow crashed over her and Katie gasped. The presence in her mind halted, surprised, and seemed to pull back to think. Hesitantly, it approached again.

 _ **Sadfriendwhy?**_ It nudged gently, as if asking permission.

Katie focused on memories of Matt. How he had shared with her what he was learning in school, knowing she could follow. How he had supported her when the other students in her classes reacted to her with jealousy or mockery. How she had missed him when he departed for the Garrison and grieved when the loss of the Kerberos mission was first announced.

The presence seemed to poke around in her mind, then a new image emerged. The face was a blend of her mother and Matt, giving a good impression of what an older Holt sister might have looked like. Katie grinned at that and the presence surged back in: _**togetherjoinedgoodfriend.**_

Katie laughed aloud when the mental older sister jumped and squealed, much like Katie herself had done when Matt announced his acceptance in the Garrison. "Yup, you got it. Good new friend!"

She followed Shiro's pod through the wormhole.

* * *

Lance was a little disappointed to see that the princess had placed the other end of the wormhole directly above the planetoid with the Yellow Lion. He was beginning to get used to the controls and wanted more time to fly the Blue Lion around. He felt his mind-sister essentially pat his head. _**Later. Focus.**_

Hunk was looking at the contraption in his hand, some kind of tracker. As was the norm, Hunk was babbling his nerves out. "According to the coordinates, we're right on top of the Yellow Lion. It's below there, where they're mining for the ore. They don't even know the lion is there. Or maybe they just got here and they're digging for the lion? What do you think?"

"It doesn't matter! Just go get it! I'm dropping you down there."

"Me? Down there? No. No, no, no."

"Yes, I'll cover you!"

"No, what—what if I—what if I can't get in the mine? What if I get lost in the mine tunnels? What if the Yellow Lion doesn't even work? What if—"

The mind-sister shook her head, amused at Hunk's antics. Whatever was down there was ready and waiting for him.

"Dammit, just go, Hunk!" Lance followed his mind-sister's guidance and twisted the controls in a way that dumped Hunk right out of the Blue Lion's cockpit, through the mouth, and into the entrance to the mine.

As Lance began firing at the squadron of fighters headed toward them, he marveled at the spirit that seemed to have taken up residence inside him. He could feel his own emotions and was still thinking his own thoughts, but inside him there seemed to be some new space, with this second presence echoing back at him. Keith's words as they stood in that desert shack came back to him.

 _Feeling each other. Is this what he was talking about?_

His mind-sister threw up her hands in triumph. _**Together!**_

Her glee was infectious. Lance grinned and started trying more controls to see just how many lasers were on this ship.

* * *

Shiro charged onto the bridge, ready to scream at the two Alteans. While Keith was no longer transmitting terror through the bond, he was extremely tense and wary.

He found Keith seated in a tactician's chair to the far right. The red-haired man, Coran, was down on one knee next to him, speaking quietly. Keith was listening to him, but had his arms crossed tight over his chest and a carefully neutral expression on his face. Shiro recognized the body language from the Garrison, when Keith was listening to a teacher or superior officer only because he had to. Whatever Coran was saying, Keith wasn't buying all of it.

The princess was standing apart, watching them. Shiro brushed past her and strode over, reaching out to take Keith's hands and pull him up into his arms. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Keith nodded into his shoulder, sending his reassurance through the bond instead of speaking. Shiro also caught a hint of something… Keith was channeling yet another presence, like the Blue Lion.

The presence poked at him curiously and Keith was encouraging it. And then Shiro realized.

The Black Lion. He pictured the largest ship from the shared vision, soaring through the sky, a pair of red and white wings on its back.

The presence grew a little stronger in agreement.

Shiro felt eyes on him and looked up. The princess was staring at the two of them with a frown. He met her stare and tightened his hold on Keith.

She opened her mouth to speak, paused, and then said, "How is it that you are sharing quintessences? One of the most basic tenets of the universe is that it is unique to each individual, no matter how closely related."

"I'm guessing it's because we have a soul bond."

When Shiro didn't elaborate and the princess didn't reply, Coran inched forward timidly. "Princess, what exactly are you seeing?"

She gestured at them with a hand. "I thought earlier that their quintessences were extremely similar, as if they were from the same family. But the structure is literally identical. And… It's so strong! They should be collapsing from the overload, their minds fried like blown circuits! I don't understand!"

Katie entered just in time to hear her. She looked around, seeing the adversarial positions, and wearily repeated, "Not. Altean. Can you look at me and see the same thing?"

The princess focused on her for a moment. "Your quintessence is quite strong as well, compared to a normal Altean, but it's still nothing like what they are showing."

"So the working hypothesis is that Terrans have a naturally higher level of this quintessence than Alteans. And when you take into account that Shiro and Keith are soulmates, the logical theory for that is that they are sharing two quintessences that have combined and appear to be one. Hence, double the norm and something about the bond itself makes this possible. We won't be able to learn more until we go back to Terra where you can see more of us and more soul-bonded pairs." As she spoke, Katie moved to stand in front of them. Shiro put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, trying to convey his thanks.

"Go back? But we have to stop Zarkon!"

Katie shrugged and spread her hands. "I don't see those as mutually exclusive, given the existence of this wormhole technology."

The princess looked angry and Coran moved to stand beside Katie. "Allura, that's a fair point. We can discuss it once we deal with the Galra warship in orbit around us."

Shiro and Katie both snapped their heads around to look at him. Shiro burst out, "The what?! They're here already?"

Finally Keith broke his silence. "And they have the Red Lion on board."

* * *

Hunk tiptoed through the tunnel, trying to sort through the sensory overload. He felt tingly all over, like his blood would jump out of his skin any second. He was bathed in the warm golden glow of lion carvings like the ones back on Terra. He could hear the rumble of a voice, just out of range...or was he hearing it in his head? He put his hand to a wall, feeling a pull from the other side, and gold lines chased up to trace out a sun, indicating his direction.

"Okay, how am I going to get through this?"

 _ **Cleverboylookthinksee.**_

Hunk's memory brought up the face of Melo. He hadn't thought about Melo in years.

 _A four-year-old Tsuyoshi followed the teenager into the shallows, feeling the wet sand slide from under his toes as the wave receded. Melo dove into the next wave and surfaced, throwing his hair out of his face. Hunk ventured further, feeling the tug of the currents around his knees._

" _Yoshi, wait! I'll bring you out!"_

 _Melo came and picked him up piggy-back. "Always wait for me until you're strong enough to swim it yourself."_

 _Tsuyoshi laughed. "Go through a wave!"_

" _Okay, but hold your breath! I'll count before I go in. One...two...THREE!"_

 _They dove in, the water surging around them. He clung to Melo's shoulders, relishing the feeling, and then they broke through to the other side and Melo was laughing. "You okay?"_

" _Do it again!"_

Hunk's hand clenched into a fist as he felt a wave of melancholy. Melo had been the main male figure in Hunk's life growing up. Melo had four sisters, none of whom enjoyed being outdoors or building things, and he and Hunk had gravitated to each other. They had lost touch after Melo left for college; the last he knew, Melo was in Asia working as an architect.

The Melo in his mind flapped his hands impatiently. _**Comehurrymovethrough.**_

Hunk looked around and his eyes lit up when he spotted the giant drill.

* * *

So far things were going according to plan.

Mostly.

Keith ran through the corridors, looking for any kind of sign that he was getting closer to the Red Lion. He could feel Shiro's sudden alarm at running into some kind of drone, then admiring fascination as Katie efficiently hacked it into a guide for them as they searched for the Holts. Shiro was certain that neither Commander Holt nor Matt was aboard, but he couldn't deny Katie's need to search. Shiro's unhappiness was growing as he tried to plan what he would say to her when they came up empty-handed.

This was the _only_ reason Keith had agreed to splitting up. He knew Shiro and Katie were all right and they knew he was all right.

Spinning his goddamn wheels in a random search, but all right.

He heard clanking footsteps echoing down the corridor and ducked down a different hallway that looked promising…until he saw the same giant Galra insignia from several minutes ago.

Shiro sensed his frustration and sent back encouragement. Keith didn't need words to know what his soulmate was thinking.

 _Patience yields focus._

Keith paused, closed his eyes, and concentrated. He followed the internal pathways that had led him to the Blue Lion and then the Black Lion. His mind and his heart began to zero in…

"Gotcha!" He turned and ran again, a grin spreading across his face.

* * *

The newly-christened Rover opened the door and Katie ducked and ran inside, not waiting for the door to lift completely. "Dad? Matt?"

Behind her, Shiro called out, "Don't be afraid, we're here to help!"

"Shiro?"

A gray alien with a weird appendage on his head and an extra set of arms uncurled his protective stance around a smaller, one-eyed green alien.

"Xi? Ch'varr?" Shiro was looking around, astonished. "What are you—no, never mind. Do you know if there are any other prisoners on board?"

An alien that was Shiro's size with long, curling horns, rose to his feet. "No, just us. They said we were on our way to Baxoma to fight one another in the arena there. We were winning too much in the old arena."

Katie tried to tamp down her defeat. Shiro had warned her that the odds were low, that his last known intelligence on her family was that they'd been sent to work camps. She joined Shiro in helping the aliens to their feet, noting how they all moved to greet Shiro in some way.

A brown one with way too many arms paused in front of her. "You're related to Matt."

"He's my brother! Do you know what happened to him?"

The alien shook its head. "All we know is they took him. It sounded like they were going to try and fix his leg from where Shiro injured him…" The alien trailed off, uncertain whether it was revealing a secret.

Katie patted it on the highest left shoulder. "Shiro told me about it."

"Come on! We need to get to the nearest escape pod," Shiro called over to them.

* * *

"Come on, just break already!" Hunk shouted in frustration as he kept the beam from the mouth laser focused on the force field protecting the ion cannon. In his ears Lance was practically hooting in glee as he dodged fighters and took them out.

In his mind, the Melo image huffed and blew his bangs out of his eyes before screwing up his face in concentration once more.

"Shiro, Pidge, Keith! What's your status?"

Pidge's voice came back. "We found some prisoners of the Galra. We're getting them to an escape pod. Don't shoot it!"

"Copy!" Hunk jumped a little as his hand moved and squeezed a control, producing a second laser coming from...the tail? "Keith? What about you?"

No answer.

Hunk drew breath to repeat the call, but Pidge broke in. "Shiro? What's Keith's status?"

"He's a bit busy at the moment, trying to talk the Red Lion into letting him in, but he's—" Shiro broke off suddenly. "Keith!"

* * *

Keith paused in a recess, looking over the large hangar doors across from him. The pull was definitely coming from the other side. As he waited, uncertain of his next move, the doors opened and two Galra soldiers came out. One of them put a hand to a screen on one side and the doors closed again.

 _Okay, simple enough. I hope._

Once the soldiers were out of sight, Keith ran across the passage and put his hand to the screen. The doors opened obligingly and he hit the control a second time, slipping through before it closed.

On the other side of the hangar, inside yet another bubble-shaped force field, was the Red Lion.

Keith stepped up and laid his hand on the barrier, looking for the jolt of light and energy that had appeared for Lance. "Hey, there. I'm here."

The presence was there, but very faint. Keith had the impression of a feral cat, unloved and fighting for so long that it no longer trusted anyone.

 _ **Noneveragainprotecthim…**_ An image of the Black Lion sprang into Keith's mind.

"Black? We'll protect him. Shiro's going to be his pilot. Will you let me help you?"

 _ **Neveragainkilledhimkilledmypaladinnomore…**_

"I'm sorry. I can understand that, kind of. My dad died of illness, he wasn't killed, but I still lost him."

That got a definite reaction. The feral cat in his mind's eye hissed and swatted and Keith felt a blow that rocked him. "Hey!"

 _ **NOT THE SAME!**_

"I said kind of! But look, we can help you! Black said you'd been betrayed. Was it through Zarkon's orders? Did your paladin try to protect Altea when the others left? We've agreed to help Princess Allura try to end his empire. If you let me in, I can help!"

 _ **BETRAYED! FORSAKEN!**_

And now Keith was overwhelmed by images, driving him to his knees. Two figures fighting while a city burned around them, the larger driving a sword through the smaller. A tractor beam from a Galra ship pulling the Red Lion in. Ten thousand years of Zarkon throwing candidates in front of her, looking for someone who would unlock her heart again. The emotions whirled around his core, surrounding him. As if from a great distance, he felt Shiro's sudden concern.

Keith fought through the pain and grief and started shoving back, pushing himself to his feet. Memories of him and Shiro, discovering each other in that self-defense class. The first time they held hands while walking across the Garrison campus. The movie marathon that had turned into a sleepover when Keith had drifted off, his head on Shiro's shoulder. Their first kiss, weeks later, that Keith had initiated because he'd realized that Shiro simply wasn't going to. The last kiss before Shiro departed for Kerberos, intense and long.

 _You'll never have to face that situation again as long as it's me and Shiro. We won't betray one another, it'll never happen. I promise you, we come from the princess. We want to help._

The feral cat was back, on guard but still except for a lashing tail. Considering.

And Keith was jerked out of the connection when an energy bolt caught the pauldron of his armor and spun him around.

A half-dozen sentry robots were moving to surround him.

Keith brought up his shield immediately as they kept firing, backing up against the force field. "Come on! I'm trying to help!"

He summoned his sword and charged in. He was able to take two down immediately with one swing forward and another back, but the others increased their assault and the shield broke apart and vanished, the backlash throwing him to the floor.

They paused in firing, slowly approaching him. Keith looked around frantically, then spotted the controls on a panel near him. Stowing the bayard and sealing off his helmet with a thought, he slapped the switch.

The hatch below parted, drawing the air from the hangar with gale-level force. Keith clung to the panel, his arms and shoulders screaming in pain, as the remaining sentries were swept into space. Now he could feel Shiro's fear as he strained to reach the switch and close the hatch again…

...and a crate hurtled toward him, striking him and breaking his hold. He soared into the starry expanse with absolutely no lifeline.

Shiro was now close to panic.

 _The jetpacks!_

Keith mentally slapped his forehead and fired up the thrusters in the armor, steering himself back toward the ship and trying to calm Shiro down. _I'm okay, it's okay, I got this._

The blast from a fighter that had noticed him missed, but the energy kickback sent him hurtling farther from the battleship.

A second fighter had broken off its pursuit of the Blue Lion and Lance's voice screeched in his helmet, "Dude! What the hell are you doing?" They started to turn toward him, then gyrated wildly to avoid the crossfire of yet more fighters.

The two going after Keith began firing, but kept missing as he was a very small target. Keith used the jetpack to dodge and adjust his momentum, trying to get back to the ship and through the hatch. The fighters switched tactics and closed in on either side, apparently ready to smash into each other with him in between. Keith pushed the jetpack to its limit, knowing it wouldn't be fast enough to get out of the way.

He sent one desperate surge of love and apology to Shiro, who was almost wailing in desperation.

 _ **NO!**_

A burst of intense heat seared into his head and chest. A lion's roar rattled his brain and suddenly he was sprawled inside huge metal jaws.

 _ **Mine! My paladin!**_

 _Yes,_ Keith thought back. _Your paladin._

The responding purr vibrated through him and Keith reached to share it with Shiro, to let him know he was alive and safe for the moment. He staggered to his feet and started climbing toward the cockpit.

* * *

"Shiro, come on!" Katie grabbed Shiro's arm as he lagged behind the prisoners, hugging himself as if in pain.

The tall horned alien, Ch'varr, looked back and saw Shiro stagger. To Katie's amazement, he ran back and pulled Shiro upright, slinging one arm over his shoulders. "Come on, you can't help him if the sentries catch us here!"

"He's...outside the ship...escape pod…" Shiro was fighting to get the words out.

Katie helped the last of the other aliens in. "Green will be faster!" She pushed at Ch'varr. "Get in! Go to the castle on the planet! We'll meet you there!"

"But Shiro—"

"I got him! Get to safety!" She managed to get him inside and shouted, "Rover! Close it and send it down!" The little drone obeyed and the pod slid into the launching bay.

Behind her, Shiro collapsed to his knees and screamed, "NO! KEITH!"

Inside her head, Green seemed to be pleading. _**NOMOREFEARHE'SYOURSGETHIMTAKEHIMRED-SISTER!**_

As Katie dropped to Shiro's side, Rover began beeping urgently. She looked up to see sentries closing in on them. She started pulling on Shiro's shoulder. "Shiro? Shiro? We've gotta move!" He didn't respond—was she seeing a soulmate witness his partner's death?

She could not let herself fall apart now. She could not. She had to get Shiro to safety.

 _ **YES!**_ Green's presence exploded in triumph.

A split-second later, Shiro gasped and grabbed for her hand, getting to his feet. "He's safe...Red got to him…"

"Halt!"

Katie summoned her bayard, unsure of what she could do with it. Those sentries were awfully tall.

Beside her, Shiro lifted his prosthetic. The hand began glowing purple and Shiro stepped forward.

Only to fall to one knee again as he clutched the metal wrist with his other hand and cried out.

* * *

The relief of being inside Red, feeling the bond between them roaring like a forest fire, was short-lived. The first interruption was Lance screeching in his ear through the helmet. Keith ignored that in favor of concentrating on Shiro; he and Katie were still on board the Galra ship.

The second interruption was white-hot pain shooting up his right arm.

Red immediately cocooned herself around him. Where she had been a feral cat before, she was now a full lioness. The pain receded and she pushed behind him as he poured strength into Shiro.

 _ **Green-sister? Where?**_

Keith let Red guide his hands on the controls and the Green Lion came surging from the other side.

"Finally!" Hunk's voice came through the comm. "I got the force field down and bashed the cannon in. I hope it's really broken!"

"Help Lance with the fighters! Protect the escape pod with the prisoners! We're going after Shiro and Katie!"

"Copy!"

Keith focused on the bond with Shiro, trusting Red to do whatever was needed. _Coming, we're coming, hold on!_

The pain flared around his right wrist and Keith grabbed it with his other hand, trying his best to drain it away from Shiro.

As he groped frantically for ideas, the Green Lion took matters into her own paws and rammed into the side of the ship.

* * *

Shiro felt Keith absorb the worst of the pain. He realized now; the witch was not stupid. They wouldn't have given him constant access to a deadly weapon if it could be used against them. During his captivity he had never dared, but now some kind of failsafe had been activated and was weighing his hand down, sending waves of agony through his body.

He could sense something behind Keith in the bond, something that was pushing back against the restraint. He clenched his teeth against another scream, knowing Katie was right beside him and probably terrified.

And then with a snap that felt like bones breaking, the pain vanished and the hand glowed with power.

The sentries began firing and Shiro didn't hesitate. He blocked the first blast from the rifle, then deflected the second one back into the sentries, taking one down. And then he was among them, slashing with the weaponized hand as he avoided their attacks. Keith was still focused entirely on him, just as he had been during many of the arena battles, lending power and tactics.

Shiro quickly discovered that a head or chest hit dropped the sentry immediately and focused his strikes. Something green entered his vision from the side and he heard Katie's incredulous "Whoa!"

He spun, taking two sentries down with head-strikes at once, and saw another fallen sentry wrapped in a glowing green cable that crackled with energy. Shiro sent his hand through the chest of the last sentry and let the arm power down. He bent forward, hands on knees, gulping in air.

"Wow, Shiro! How did you learn to fight like that?"

"Arena," he gasped out without thinking and immediately felt guilty as he saw comprehension and then horror cross her face. But before he could say anything else, purple energy bolts from a fresh wave of sentries shot past them.

 _Come on!_ Keith's presence, oddly overlaid with something warm, urged them to move. The ship shuddered, as if something huge had struck it.

Katie did something to retract the cord of her katar-shaped blade and seized his hand. "This way, through the launch! Open it, Rover!" Her visor glowed briefly as the open part vanished to cover her face again.

Shiro sealed his own visor and followed her into the tunnel, feeling the drag from decompression tug him along. He blinked when he realized what he was seeing: the Green Lion had bitten into the hull around the launching bay and was holding its jaws open, ready for them. Katie was already in and racing up the ramp to the cockpit, the little drone zipping behind her. He followed and lurched as the lion immediately let go and closed around him.

"Let's get out of here!" Keith's voice sounded in his ears as the bond was suffused with relief.

"Agreed, everyone back to base!"

* * *

Thank you as always for reading!


	14. Part 14

I apologize that this chapter took so long, but between work and muses attracted to other shiny stories and changing my mind about six times about how to handle events in this chapter with the soul bond trope...it was a difficult one. I hope you all find it satisfactory.

Please feel free to come yell at me on Twitter or Tumblr, same username.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Shiro stood in front of the enormous doors. The others were behind him, seated in their lions. He tried to remember the last time he had felt like this, standing at attention and waiting to be measured, judged. Found worthy. Was it standing with the final candidates for the Kerberos mission, waiting to hear who had been chosen?

Before his thoughts could spiral down into darker memories, Keith sent reassurance, the warmth behind his presence vibrating like a purring cat.

The sound began to echo and Shiro began to recognize distinct purrs: the Blue Lion, steady and nurturing; that sparking energy from the jungle planet must be the Green Lion. Another purr, the Yellow Lion, had a friendly, supportive feel to it.

And the presence Keith had linked to him before was emanating from behind the doors.

It...no, _he_ was watching Shiro. Evaluating. Deciding. An image of one of his first professors at the Garrison sprang into Shiro's mind.

The professor had taught chemistry. One of his favorite things to do during labs had been to circulate among the students, a glass rod the length of a conductor's baton in his hand. He would use it in all sorts of ways to poke and prod at students who were less than attentive to their experiments. One of his favorite tricks was to stick it in an unsuspecting student's beaker or flask and start stirring. News began circulating the year after Shiro's class that he had finally succeeded in causing a minor explosion and had been moved to a lecturing-only class.

Right now, Shiro felt like one of those beakers, the Black Lion's glass rod stirring to see what rose to the top. He straightened instinctively and tried to open his thoughts to the presence. A majestic maned lion with a coat like black velvet circled him, examining what was offered.

Memories of his parents and grandparents. Random friends as a child. Being accepted into the Garrison and moving all the way across the Pacific Ocean from what he knew. Honing in on his dreams of piloting into space.

Finding Keith.

The lion seemed to spend a long time prodding his memories of Keith, half curious and half wary. Shiro could also feel Keith following along and the Red Lion behind him, waiting impatiently, until…

 ** _Stop delaying, brother. You see as well as I do._**

Keith's surprise echoed in their bond, matching Shiro's.

There were no words, but a cautious presence reaching out to him. Shiro extended his own feelings, much as he would with Keith…

 ** _Welcome, paladin._**

The doors began to rise.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The holodisplay had barely finished showing the connection forming between the lions when red lights began blaring around Allura and Coran. She brought up a comm display with a sweep of one hand.

"Paladins! The Galra ship has entered the Arusian atmosphere! We'll be attacked any minute! We need Voltron now!"

Coran raised the particle barrier, glancing worriedly over at her. "If they've got their ion cannon back online, we probably can't take more than a few hits before the barrier fails."

A comm screen appeared over them, large and looming. A Galra officer leered down at them with blank yellow eyes. "Princess Allura of the former planet Altea, this is Commander Sendak of the Galra Empire. I am here to collect the lions. Turn them over to me now and I will spare your lives."

Her answer was always going to be "no", but the smug confidence in his tone drove her past any attempt at diplomacy.

"I will never allow Voltron to fall into Galra hands! Leave this planet before you are destroyed!"

His answer was a derisive chuckle. "Victory or death, then. How very Galra of you, princess."

The screen vanished before she could hurl further abuse, driven by a roiling in her gut at the mere suggestion she might behave like one of those vile creatures. "Coran, give me maximum power to the shields! Paladins, prepare for incoming fire!"

Over the comms, Shiro was directing the others to fly in formation and try triggering the transformation that way. Pidge was huffing and Hunk sounded close to hysteria.

And the first beam from the cannon struck the barrier, shaking the castle walls.

"Paladins, hurry!"

She and Coran worked feverishly to divert as much power to the barrier as possible. Allura sent silent prayers to any deity who would listen: _Please let them find the way._

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Flying in formation didn't last once the lions left the particle barrier's shelter and the fighters began swarming around them.

"Evasive maneuvers!" Shiro's voice barked into Katie's helmet.

 _I don't know_ ** _how_** _to maneuver evasively!_ Katie thought back but didn't voice it. Instead she snapped, "Can't they just stop firing for one minute so we can figure this out?"

The steering poles jerked on their own under her hands and her mind-sister showed an expression of concentration. As a fighter closed in, Katie imagined pouncing on it like a cat on a small bird.

And the Green Lion followed suit, snatching the fighter out of the air and flinging it into another.

She could hear the others, trying to find the way to bring the lions together into one. Allura and Coran were shouting as the ship's cannon sent blast after blast into the shield. With an earth-shaking shudder, the barrier collapsed, leaving the castle exposed.

And then they were trapped in a purple light, being pulled in toward the warship.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Even in his frantic struggle to keep Blue out of the line of fire and take down fighters, Lance grinned at seeing Hunk knock Keith sideways and Keith's petulant protest. But his mind-sister reached out and yanked, snapping his head back.

 ** _Not now!_** The thought was tinged with a warning growl.

"Okay, okay! But how do we form Voltron?"

 ** _Come together._**

"Yeah, that didn't work when Hunk tried to join Keith!"

 ** _ALL together!_**

Lance steered toward Shiro and Pidge.

His mind-sister gritted her teeth. **_This way!_**

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Blue!"

He felt that mental yank again and tried to lean into it. Some kind of light seemed to be bathing the image of his mind-sister. Her dark hair was taking on a blue tinge and the frustration in her voice came out in a growl. She bared her teeth in a furious expression.

 ** _Find me! See_** **me!**

And then Lance felt the lion being pulled in the opposite direction as ominous purple glow filled the cockpit.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

 _Ohgodohgodohgod!_

If he had the mental capacity for anything beyond terror at this moment, Hunk would be very irritated at mind-Melo, who was _still_ chuckling over his attempt to just merge into Keith's lion by running into him. Hunk could also feel irritation that wasn't his from somewhere.

But he was unable to do anything but scrabble in panic. He wasn't a pilot; he was an engineer. Sure, he'd run a few sims in his training to learn the concept of diagnostics by feel, but it wasn't his thing.

 _I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how any of this works—_

 ** _PALADIN!_**

The mental shout was accompanied by a _thwack_ that rattled inside his skull. As Hunk shook his head to clear it, he felt the controls shift in his hands, guiding him in how to move the steering sticks for marginally better maneuverability.

Mind-Melo took a deep breath and Hunk breathed with him, feeling just a little calmer. And as his own fear died down a little, he felt other emotions creep in: frustration, determination, and a will to fight to the very end.

Mind-Melo looked like the sun was setting behind him; his hair was taking on a golden glow.

And then he was fighting something that was pulling the lion up farther into the sky and purple light poured through his viewscreen.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Keith felt it the second some outside force began tugging at the Red Lion. He tried to combat it as he would a riptide, steering into it and angling to exit. He had seen the castle's protective barrier collapse and knew he had to regain control of his ship immediately.

Red circled in his mind and Keith felt the terror emanating from her. **_I won't go back! Don't let them take me back!_**

 _Never!_

Keith swung Red around in order to fire at the warship looming overhead. "It's a tractor beam! Try focusing your fire on its source!"

 ** _We need to come together!_**

Along the bond, he felt Shiro's resolve start to crumble as memories of his imprisonment swarmed up. Keith flooded their connection with assurance and a fierce protectiveness. _Never again! They're not getting you again! We can do this!_

He felt an odd mirror-echo as Black sent the same reassuring message to Red. And plunged into that link.

Red's eyes took on a shining golden glow.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Shiro felt his lion being swept up by the pull and his essence was suddenly bombarded from multiple directions. The realization that they'd been caught in a tractor beam just as Keith voiced it. Echoes of dread and dismay from the other lions. The blast of fear from the Red Lion at the thought of being back in the hands of the Galra. Which pushed Shiro's own memories of his captivity to the forefront.

 _Fellow prisoners bleeding out under his hands as he tried to help them. The rain of blows that landed from the opponents in the arena. The agony as the witch raked lightning through him. The nightmares of an alien limb fused to his body and the paranoia of not knowing whether it could be used against him…_

 _Shiro!—_ ** _Paladin!_**

Keith's spirit drove through the cacophony in his brain and reverberated with the Black Lion's roar. And as they reached him, Shiro could feel hints of the others, not just their lions, skittering around the edges of his awareness.

And then Katie's voice crackled through the comms. "It can't end like this!"

"It won't! We can do this! Everyone, fire every weapon you can find at the tractor beam on my mark!" Shiro gave them the time it took to draw one steadying breath, then shouted, "Mark!"

Multiple blue-white energy beams shot from all the lions. Five supposed proton cannons, some paired with tail-beams. The Red Lion's eyes were glowing like twin stars and sent a golden pulse of energy.

Explosions bloomed across the hull of the Galra ship and the tractor beam fizzled out.

"Scatter and come together behind the ship! Draw it away from the castle!" Shiro steered Black over the enemy ship, taking a page from Lance's book and dragging Black's claws along its body. As more explosions erupted, Shiro led the others up and away from the castle.

Shiro extended his mental reach from Black, finding Keith and Red already with him. "I think I know what we have to do! Everyone, concentrate on that link you have with your lion and lean into it. The lions are already connected; we have to enter that connection and let it draw us in. We're supposed to be five fighting as one. We have to come together!"

He wasn't surprised that Katie was the first to join them—she had been watching and adjusting her behavior to Shiro and Keith from the start. Lance was next, full of a drive to make Blue proud of him. He could feel Hunk trying, but his anxiety was through the roof at trying to fly a ship and he was struggling. Shiro could feel Yellow, pacing back and forth, trying to find a way to bridge the gap.

"Hunk, you can do it! You invented the device that located Blue! You found Yellow and you bonded with him! You are exactly what a Paladin of Voltron should be! Lance, can you connect with him?"

"I can try!"

Shiro's limbs hummed with energy as he felt both Lance and Katie try to pull Hunk in. Then Keith reached as well, pulling Shiro along with him…

 ** _THERE!_**

Black's "voice" resounded through him.

 ** _TOGETHER._**

The five lions spoke in a single, deep roar.

Shiro could feel it as the lions shifted, reformed, and melded together. In his mind's eye, five majestic lions, their fur shining with colors, morphed together into an enormous feline. Its coat was silvery-white, rippling with rainbow hues.

Voltron landed on the deck of the warship.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

It was the strangest thing Shiro had ever experienced. He was his own self, a human body in a pilot's seat, feverishly manipulating the controls in front of him. At the same time he was a giant, standing on the ship and looking down at its bridge, slightly amused at the tiny beings inside it.

There was a surge of energy to one side and almost before he could think it, Voltron's right arm shot out and drove into the ion cannon, sending its final blast across the horizon instead of into the castle.

Shiro's own right arm thrummed with energy, but instead of the poisonous burn, it sang with the soul bond. He felt Keith's fierce triumph as they plunged the Red Lion's head through the hull and fired, nearly breaking the ship in half with the resulting explosion.

Voltron leaped up the deck, closer to the bridge, and Shiro felt the difference as Lance landed more solidly than Hunk. This time the left arm punched through the hull and he could feel Katie's hesitation, clearly understanding Shiro's intent but still unfamiliar with the controls. Then more explosions flared up as she fired.

As the ship began to crack apart, Voltron vaulted into the air, gliding away from the enemy and toward the castle, swatting at the remaining fighters that were still programmed to attack. They began dropping out of the sky as the warship's power failed and it plummeted to the ground.

Shiro allowed himself one brief moment of victory, sending the robot into a wide looping arc and then a few spins. He could feel Keith's joy mingled with his own at the thrill of flight. The others were there, but following him rather than beside him like Keith was.

 ** _Well done._**

With that pronouncement, the shimmering lion brightened and then divided back into five. Shiro felt a very uncomfortable sensation of his own body splitting apart for the briefest second, then he was himself again in the Black Lion. A wave of relief flowed into him from Keith, fatigue beginning to overtake the adrenaline from the battle.

Allura's voice sounded in his helmet, full of that same relief. "You did it, paladins! You did it."

Shiro still didn't quite understand how they'd done it. Black prowled in his mind, sending his own satisfaction into Shiro's core.

 ** _Well done, my paladin._**

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

The afterglow of the victory lasted through a meal of that strange green goop. Hunk spent several minutes poking at his plate and taking tiny bites, as if analyzing the dish. Lance crowed about how many fighters he had taken down until he realized that Keith was going to ignore him in favor of paying attention to Shiro. Katie watched as the four little mice that had been in the princess' capsule ate their way through the extra dish that Coran set in the middle of the table.

Keith moved unexpectedly, rising and stepping over to Shiro, who had leaned forward to rest his head in his hands. "Sorry to cut the party short, but is there anywhere we could bunk down for the night?"

The princess looked startled at that, then affronted. "Of course there is! This is the Castle of Lions! We've hosted delegations of hundreds before! And as paladins, you'll each have your own quarters."

She rose and led them into the halls, turning only a couple of times before stopping along a corridor with multiple doors on either side. She pointed at various doors as she rattled off their names. "Pidge, you'll be in here. Shiro, across from her. Hunk, next to Shiro with Keith next to him and Lance next to Pidge."

Shiro activated the control for the door and glanced into the room, seeing the narrow bed in an otherwise empty space. He glanced at Keith and Katie noticed Keith's shoulders droop in resignation.

"Um, Princess?"

"Yes, Pidge?"

"You're going to need a bigger room, or at least one with a bigger bed, for Shiro and Keith."

Allura frowned. "I don't understand."

"They need to share quarters."

The princess' expression grew scandalized. "The Paladins of Voltron represent—"

"They're soulmates," Pidge stated, leaving no room for argument. "Just consider them married or bonded or whatever you people call it."

Allura drew breath to respond, her brows lowered in growing anger, but Coran laid a hand on her arm. "Princess, we've always respected the customs of other cultures. There are plenty of possibilities in the ambassadorial wing."

Allura turned her glare on him, ears twitching with the need to argue. Coran held his ground, a quirk of his mustache the only reaction.

Katie felt movement behind her. Someone put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed in gratitude. She guessed it was Shiro based on the size.

Finally Allura drew a breath. "Fine. Follow me."

The ambassadorial wing was up two floors from the kitchen and dining hall. There were six rooms on the hall that Allura chose. The first one was beautifully appointed in white and shades of purple, with an enormous bed among the furniture.

"Will this do?" Allura's voice held only a little sarcasm.

Shiro and Keith traded glances and they nodded. Shiro answered, "Yes, princess. Thank you."

Lance and Hunk had begun opening doors and they paused at one on the opposite wall. Lance looked back at them.

"Can Hunk and I share this one?"

Katie looked in, curious. The room was large, with two sizable beds in it, and soothing in a sky blue and pale gold color scheme.

"Why do you need one room? You're not bonded like them."

"No, but we were roommates back at the Garrison. We've known each other a long time," Hunk replied.

Coran pointed Katie to another door. "This one might be to your liking."

She took in the lush green colors, the bed, and the three desk areas for workspace. She felt a grin burst wide enough to split her face.

And Coran smiled back, his eyes going wistful at her enthusiasm.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Colleen swiped through the headlines on her tablet, getting more and more irritated with each one.

 **"Existence of Aliens Confirmed!"**

 **"Kerberos Pilot Brings Warning—Galaxy Garrison Cover-up"**

 **"Illegal Attempt to Break Soul Bond Confirmed by Whistleblower"**

 **"Distance Makes the Heart Grow Fonder: Soul Bonds Reach Past Solar System"**

She tossed the tablet on the table in Greg's office. The noise made the others look up. Dr. Hooper glanced at Greg and reached over to squeeze her shoulder.

"Anything in particular?"

Colleen shook her head. "No. Yes. I don't… I just need to know if Katie's all right. And I can't message her because I know she was on that lion ship when it disappeared. I know the old saying is no news is good news, but I can't stop imagining what could have happened to them out in space."

"Would it help to talk to the other parents?"

"They would have contacted us if they'd heard from their sons."

Dr. Hooper moved closer, putting an arm around her. "I meant, maybe they've got some way of coping that might help you."

Colleen resisted the urge to snap. The other woman was only trying to help.

Greg's tablet beeped with an incoming message and he sat up, his eyes narrowing. "Someone's just texted me anonymously, saying they have new information about the Kerberos Mission. They want me to go to the service entrance and let them in." He looked up and as Colleen watched, the soulmates stared at one another for a moment, communicating through their emotions. Then Greg stood. "If I'm not back in five minutes, notify my boss and the police."

After he left, the silence grew oppressive. Colleen finally looked up. "I apologize. I understand you're trying to help, Dr. Hooper, but I've been through this once already with Sam and Matt. Watching them leave, missing them and not getting any more than basic reports, being told out of the blue that they died, and then Katie finding out that we were lied to… It's all the same emotions. Just worse because now it's Katie missing as well."

Dr. Hooper nodded. "I can see that. At least you know that your daughter will contact you as soon as she is able. And call me Molly."

"Molly. I know she will if possible. It's the 'if possible' part that worries me. We don't know why those ships disappeared from the probes. If they enacted some kind of faster-than-light travel, we don't know how far they went. We don't have a soulmate to guide us to the other. We just...don't have anything."

"Not quite," a voice spoke and their heads snapped around. "We have a little information on the adversary."

Colleen jumped to her feet, seeing Commander Iverson standing beside a wary Greg.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Notes:

Thank you as always for reading, for kudos, and for comments!


	15. Part 15

I apologize profusely for taking so long in updating this story. The canon was coming fast and furious for so much of 2018, sparking new ideas, and real life has been very challenging.

A couple of things since it's been a while. This is an AU and (1) the ages I chose for Shiro and Keith turned out to be a little younger than what we learned was canon later. At this point in the story Shiro is 23 and Keith is 17. (2) I have chosen to ignore canon as far as Shiro's degenerative disease, because it would be a hell of a lot of editing to go back and put it in. As my ideas for this story have developed, we're probably going to veer away from canon partway through Season 1 events and I'll include things that I want to include or find interesting.

* * *

Colleen circled the table, coming around to stand in front of Iverson. The commander straightened his posture and held her gaze. He made no move as she stepped forward. She was aware of both Greg and the doctor as they tensed up.

Then she swung, palm open.

Iverson let the slap turn his head, unflinching, as she hissed at him.

"That's for Keith and Shiro, for trying to break their soul bond! And—" she slapped him a second time with the other hand "—that is for my family and keeping secrets from me!"

Iverson held his peace as reddened handprints bloomed on his cheeks. His lack of response only made Colleen angrier. "Say something, you bastard!"

"I deserve those."

That brought her up short, blinking in surprise.

Iverson's shoulders sagged. "I came close to doing something that would have destroyed Kogane and condemned Captain Shirogane to a solitary death. I...I've never experienced a bond myself. I've met a few others who are bonded, but never well enough to talk about it. I had no idea exactly what a difference it would make until I heard Shirogane's father on the news."

That got Colleen's temper hot again. "Seriously? You have that little imagination? The closest people to me who were bonded were Sam's grandparents and a cousin of mine back in Italy and I wouldn't dream of trying to break a bond!"

"It's not like I had a choice!" Iverson shot back then clamped his lips together.

Greg stepped forward. "Don't stop there. You came here to tell us what's going on." He waved at the chairs around the table. "So tell."

Once they were seated, Greg and Iverson negotiated briefly over recording the conversation and compromised with audio only and Molly taking notes. Greg opened with the biggest question. "Who ordered you to try and break the soul bond between Captain Shirogane and Cadet Kogane?"

"My orders came from General Franke. However, I am fairly certain that he was ordered in turn, either by Admiral Lyton or Senator Domínguez."

"Domínguez is head of the Science, Space, and Technology committee, right?"

Iverson nodded. "And the admiral oversees administration of all the military academies: West Point, the Citadel, Oak Ridge, the Garrison."

"Why would they try to break the bond? Kogane was in a position to share valuable intelligence with you, even if we had no chance of rescuing the Kerberos team."

"I don't know this for certain, but my guess is that they wanted the exact opposite. Someone wants to keep the existence of aliens a secret. Their first plan was to break the bond, so there would be no proof if Kogane tried to insist that Shirogane was alive. That went in tandem with ending Dr. Hooper's project and wiping her server."

"First plan?" Molly asked sharply, looking up from her notes. "What was the second plan?"

Iverson shifted in his chair, looking down at the table. "I didn't hear the whole conversation, but the general used the words 'eliminate the risk' in reference to Kogane. I think someone was prepared to kill him if they had to."

Molly's eyes blazed at that and Greg reached over to put a hand on her wrist, offering calm to balance her, while he asked, "What other evidence do you have about this?"

Iverson snorted. "Read Katie Holt's blog. She got almost everything there was to get. They buried one file with every bit of data around the Kerberos team's approach and landing, the first samples they collected… There's even an audio where you can hear them being taken - Matt Holt had his voice recorder going when they left the ship that last time. There's this rumble in the background and Commander Holt speculates whether it's seismic activity. Then you can hear him asking about something approaching them. The last thing you can hear is Captain Shirogane shouting at them to run before they all start screaming…" He clasped his hands together and brought them to his mouth.

Colleen felt the tears gather and spill, running hot down her cheeks. Someone was letting out ugly, wailing sobs and she wanted to make herself get up and go to them.

Then Molly's arms were folding her in, pulling her close, and Colleen realized the sobs were coming from her.

* * *

Coran made one final circuit before going to bed, letting the memories wash over him as he walked the halls of the castle. Some places he avoided, like Alfor and Melenor's suite and the hall where the previous paladins kept their quarters. He lingered in the engine areas, remembering the days of watching his grandfather as he worked.

Shaking off the melancholy, he checked the cryo room, noting that all the former prisoners were still sleeping and healing well. He made one final stop on the bridge, calling up the cameras. The lions were back in their hangars, at rest. He saw Allura, on her own pilgrimage through the corridors, and chuckled slightly when Hunk left the bedchamber and headed for the kitchens, unaware of the four tiny mice following him. There was no one else moving about and Coran assumed that the other paladins were settling in for a much-deserved rest.

It wasn't the same as before. It would never be the same. But it was a start.

* * *

Shiro explored the room, opening doors to discover a recognizable bathroom and a pair of closets. Clothing that looked like pajama robes hung neatly from racks and Shiro ran a hand over the silky material. He marveled at yet more evidence of the advanced technology of these Alteans; from what he knew, any fiber on Earth would have rotted to pieces in ten thousand years if simply left to hang exposed like this. He looked through them, trying to guess sizes.

He could hear Keith moving behind him, pulling off his jacket and tossing it over a chair. His footsteps were quiet against the soft carpet, in contrast to a building impatience shaking their bond, and then his hands were on Shiro's shoulders, tugging at him to turn around.

"Keith?"

And suddenly he had his arms full of soulmate, with Keith's lips pushing insistently at his own and Keith's hands groping for the zip of Shiro's vest. He drew back slightly, trying to put a few inches of space between them, and Keith followed, going for Shiro's neck as he lifted his head. He tried to separate his own bewilderment from the explosion of frustration, worry, and desire coming from Keith.

"Keith, what in the world—"

Keith drew back and almost snarled at him. "What do you think?" And even though his expression showed nothing of it, the sudden crash of despair—the idea that Shiro didn't want him—vibrated along the bond. "You were gone for over a _year_ , Shiro! I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again! And I got you back but now we're in space fighting some intergalactic war and we could have died today! We could have died! I don't want to wait anymore—"

"Keith, you're sixteen!"

"Seventeen, thank you very much, and we're not in fucking Kansas anymore! We're in a place with no standing government of any kind, which means no consent laws. And we're not part of the Garrison anymore, so there's no fraternization rules stopping us." Keith's distress increased, twisting under Shiro's ribs.

Shiro pulled Keith in, folding his arms around him heavily, and pressed his lips into Keith's hair. As the bond began to settle and Keith calmed in response to his embrace, Shiro tried to process what he had said.

They had planned to wait. Six years' difference at their ages was a bit of a hurdle, even with the ability to feel one another's emotional state as a guide, and of course there had been the Garrison's expectations. The farthest they had gotten was a handful of makeout sessions and Shiro had certainly wanted to pick up where they left off, back in the cabin on Earth. But Keith's mood made it clear he was aiming for more.

Honestly, Shiro wanted that as well. Some people made a point of trying to wait for their soulmate, much like some people waited for marriage. He had chosen to follow his mother's example of not worrying about the future, acting on attraction for a few random encounters. But suddenly, the idea of that physical release echoing on the soul bond's level excited him, triggering a hunger he hadn't felt in so long…

Keith felt his reaction and pushed up into Shiro, mouthing at his neck again.

Shiro tightened his grip, trying to hold Keith still. "You're right, Keith, you're right. Most of the reasons we were delaying don't apply now."

Keith jerked away, sudden suspicion filling their bond. "Most?"

Shiro nodded and took Keith's hands, pulling him over to sit together on the bed. "There's still a couple of things to consider. First, we need to see if those pod things can scan for diseases or if Coran can run medical tests. You experienced plenty of my fights in that place. Blood was everywhere. I need to be sure that I haven't contracted anything that would be a danger to you."

The tension between them dissipated as Keith saw and accepted Shiro's logic.

"Me, too." Keith forestalled Shiro's automatic protest. "We've been holding onto each other and we were kissing, back in the cabin. If this Coran guy can test you for alien diseases, then he tests me, too."

"All right, that's fair."

"What's the second thing?"

Shiro felt his cheeks warm and his embarrassment crept into the bond. They'd never gone into the practical side of things in their talks. "We'd need to find out...ah, whether any...products available are compatible with humans…"

"Products? Oh, you mean lube?"

"Keith!" Shiro was torn between mortification and laughter, feeling Keith's brief confusion clear up.

"What? I researched! I mean, I knew you were going to insist on waiting until I was eighteen even if I did get promoted early. But that didn't mean I couldn't be prepared."

Laughter won and Shiro leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and covering his blushes with his hands. Once he had calmed down, he reached over and pulled Keith close again. The spark of mischief in their bond warned him as Keith threw his weight into Shiro, toppling them both back onto the bed. Keith rolled on top of him and resumed kissing Shiro along his neck.

"Keith…"

"Look, if there were anything contagious from kissing, that train is long gone from the station. I missed you, you missed me, and we're together again in spite of everything. Stop worrying and kiss me."

Shiro put his hands to Keith's head, holding him in place briefly. He felt Keith's turmoil rising again and sent back reassurance. He echoed it with his touch, tracing Keith's features with his thumbs as he admired the beautiful young man that was his other half. He let his gratitude at being reunited fill them both as he drew his soulmate down.

* * *

As fun as it was to break out her tech and arrange things to her liking, Katie had her room set up in very short order. She found pajamas with a loose over-the-head robe and laid them out, then realized she wasn't in the least bit sleepy.

Green perked up, encouraging her to come to the hangar. Snatching up her laptop, Katie grinned and exited the room, then stopped and squealed when she saw what was hovering outside her door.

"Rover! Where have you been hiding?"

The drone beeped at her and projected a holoscreen. It was a schematic of the castle with a blue line tracing a convoluted path through the hallways. Katie's eyes shone as mind-Green in her Holt persona raised her fists in glee. Between Rover's map and the lion's guidance, she moved through the halls with confidence.

They reached a huge set of sliding doors and poked at the panel next to them. At Green's direction, Katie let her hand rest on it for a scan of her palm. The doors parted to reveal the lion, arranged like a sphinx and eyes glowing. The enormous head lowered, mouth opening for them.

Katie didn't hesitate - she ran up the ramp and into the cockpit. Ignoring the pilot's chair, she sat cross-legged below the panels with the comms and powered up her laptop while Rover bobbed above her.

Green sent a thread of curiosity at her. It almost felt like being tickled and Katie laughed. "I need to try and contact my mom. I want to figure out a way for your systems or the castle's to talk to my computer. Got any ideas?"

The entrance to the cockpit glowed green and she looked up. "You want me to go back in there?" Feeling the assent, Katie got up and went through the door. Green continued to guide her with the lights, taking her to a small storage space in one wall of a common area. She opened the panel and found a jumble of tools.

Green put an image in her head and Katie searched until she found a contraption that looked a bit like a blow-dryer with a diffuser attachment. Following the lion's lead, she brought it back, found an activator switch, and pointed it at the laptop.

"If this wipes my hard drive, I am going to be seriously pissed at you," she declared. Feeling the lion's humor, she turned on the scanner.

After a long minute, a comm panel lit up, showing what appeared to be a list of files. Katie jumped to her feet, ready to throw a fist in the air…

...and then realized that everything was labeled in what must be Altean.

Dragging her hands through her hair, she rolled up mental sleeves and prepared to do battle with the lines of code before her.

* * *

After making the rounds of the castle's critical areas and noting where repairs would need to be done first, Allura started toward her room. She paused as she heard a voice in the kitchen and looked inside.

Hunk was there, poking around the stores and trying various dispensers. The mice were rapidly emptying a dish on the counter. Platt looked up and chirped at her.

 _Nice boy, very nice! He fed us!_

Allura smiled at the mental conversation, still amazed that she could communicate with them, and reached out. The mice scampered up her arms to sit on her shoulders. Hunk continued to dig around in the cabinet he was exploring, setting out various contraptions.

"This one looks like a pressure cooker. Better ask Coran before we try anything with it. And it's not like the goo's going to improve that way. I wish I knew which of these things acts like an oven. I bet the goo would bake, but what would the consistency be? Cheesecake? Sponge cake? Brownies? What do you all think? Did you get enough to eat?"

Hunk turned as he asked the last question and jumped, nearly dropping the appliance in his arms. "Ohmigosh! I'm sorry! I was hungry and looking to see if there was anything besides the goo and then the mice showed up and were giving me the we're-starving eyes and—"

"Hunk! It's all right!" Allura held up her hands and took a step closer. "You're going to be staying here as paladins. Of course you have the right to explore the castle. Don't worry."

"O-okay. Okay. Thanks. Sorry, princess."

"But I don't think there's anything else to eat. If it's been ten thousand years…"

"No, I gotcha. But there's a nice planet out there, ready for exploring. There's gotta be some edible plants out there." Hunk moved to take the dish that the mice had used, instinctively stowing it in the correct machine for cleaning.

Allura twitched an ear in surprise, but let it go for the moment. She had questions and Hunk was here to answer them.

"Hunk, can you explain a bit more about this connection between Shiro and Keith? I didn't understand what was going on earlier, when you all were going after the lions, and as a result Keith ran from us—"

"Oh, quiznak, what happened?"

"I saw what I thought was an overload in his quintessence levels...sorry, his life energy. I wanted to try and siphon it off so it wouldn't hurt him, but he panicked and ran from us."

Hunk gave a huff as he began putting the appliances back where he had found them. "Okay, yeah, that's no surprise. While he was still at the Garrison—that's where we were all training to become space explorers—and the mission Shiro was on disappeared, some people tried to break the bond between them. That's not allowed, except under very specific circumstances.

"Pidge was there when it happened and she told me a little of it. They kidnapped him and he was screaming in terror before she caused a diversion so he could get away. He ran from the Garrison after that, hid in the desert. That's when he and Blue started sensing each other."

Allura felt guilt welling up and tried to quash it. It hadn't been intentional on her part to terrify Keith. "But, I still don't understand. Just what is this bond? Does everyone have it? Does it manifest at birth?"

Hunk put the last machine away and began dusting nonexistent crumbs from the counter. "Oh, I see. Well, it's been part of Terra's population as far back in our history as we know. Everyone has, like, half of this awareness inside of them. And somewhere on the planet, there's someone else whose awareness matches ours perfectly, like pieces of a puzzle. And when you meet each other and touch, skin to skin, the two halves snap together. My moms are soulmates; they described it as being overwhelmed by the presence of the other, absorbing the other's past like a vid playing double-speed. And after that you always have a sense of what the other person is feeling."

"I see. And this condition lasts for life?"

"Oh, yeah. If one soulmate dies, the other really feels it, like they've lost half of themselves. Lots of people need counseling and support to keep them from committing suicide or just wasting away."

Allura shuddered. The idea of such an intimate connection, never having the privacy of your own feelings, repelled her. Add to that the fact that it was strong enough to drag the second person into death after the first? She thought of the strategic implications, that losing Shiro or Keith in combat would mean losing the other fighter as well. One paladin they might be able to replace; two would be nearly insurmountable.

"You said the bond can be broken. How is that done?"

Hunk's gaze sharpened, suddenly suspicious and wary where seconds before he had been sunny and warm. "I don't know exactly, but it's hard. It doesn't happen often, unless the soulmates are too far apart in age." The floor vibrated slightly, like strong thunder shaking the castle, and he stepped back, drawing himself up. "Princess, you have to understand: the soul bond is a defining part of our culture, of our physiology. Like Pidge said, just treat Shiro and Keith like a married couple if you don't have a better frame of reference. You have marriage or something, right?"

"Yes, of course we do, but don't you see? What would happen if one of them were killed in the upcoming war? We'd lose two paladins, not just one! That needs to be prevented if we have any hope of defeating Zarkon—"

"Stop right there." Hunk ground out the words. Another rumble reverberated through the castle, louder and stronger. Allura stepped back in alarm, seeing the fury building in Hunk's eyes, and felt the mice burrowing into her hair.

"If that's where you're going with this, then you can just open up a wormhole in the morning and drop us off back on Terra. Find yourselves a new set of paladins. You're not going to do anything to Shiro and Keith that threatens their bond. We won't let it happen."

"But…"

"Non-negotiable, princess."

 _ **Accept. Learn. Trust.**_

It was happening again, just like it had with Lance. The voice echoed behind Hunk's own words and he was lit up in golden light, all shifting desert sands. It was different from before. Where the voice behind Lance had been friendly and coaxing, this one was more solid and felt dependable.

 _The lions,_ she realized. The Yellow Lion was speaking to her.

The glow around Hunk faded and his brows drew together at her silence. "Your highness, do you understand?"

The extra layer of formality jolted her and she fought not to stammer in reply. "I understand what you're saying. But it will take me longer to understand this soul bond and its implications. I have met hundreds of species in my life before Altea was destroyed and I have never encountered anything like it before."

Hunk's expression relaxed a fraction. "I see. Maybe we should all talk about it tomorrow after we get some rest."

His tone echoed Coran's just enough to irritate. She replied tartly, "I've been resting for ten thousand years."

"Yeah, but you spent your first day back in a battle that brought down a warship. And we have a lot to do starting tomorrow. So yeah, tonight we rest." Hunk stretched and yawned, then moved toward the door. "Good night, princess."

* * *

Haggar listened with half her attention as Zarkon briefed his generals, her part already done.

"...send Myzax to attack as a distraction while we wait for Sendak to contact us. If he is alive, and I expect that he is, he will find a way to infiltrate the castle and take possession of the lions. Continue your patrols and I will inform you if you are needed for support on Arus."

" _Vrepit sa!"_

The comm screens closed and Zarkon sat back in his throne. He turned to Haggar, grinning in satisfaction. "The challenge was pleasant, but it is time to crush the last speck of Altea out of existence. Make sure the gladiator Myzax is fully powered, witch. It wouldn't do for your Champion to defeat him a second time."

"Yes, my lord."

"Strange that he lasted so long, given his reputation for compassion. The reports at the time claimed that he went mad from bloodlust and injured his fellow being, but rumors grew that he only pretended, that he sought to protect the other from his planet. Certainly the second course of action is more in keeping with his tendency to avoid killing in his fights." Zarkon tented his fingers under his chin. "There is no room for such weakness in the empire. I know Champion was a personal project of yours, Haggar, but he will be killed at the first opportunity. The message must be sent. No one escapes the Galra Empire."

Haggar nodded and withdrew, knowing better than to protest. Besides, Zarkon's comment had sparked a connection. In her single-minded pursuit of answers to the puzzle of Champion's quintessence, she had forgotten. He had been captured with a team of others like him.

In her lab, she pulled up the database of scouting reports, focusing on Sector X-9-Y. From there it was quick work to find the specific report and the results of the initial interrogation.

 _Prisoner 117-9874: Commander Samuel Holt_

 _Prisoner 117-9875: Captain Takashi Shirogane_

 _Prisoner 117-9876: Lieutenant Matthew Holt_

* * *

Thanks again for your patience!


End file.
